Industry News

You’ve likely heard of Tesla vehicles and perhaps the Nissan Leaf, in particular if you’ve spent time on Maui. Introducing the Lucid Air luxury electric vehicle.

For owners of a Lucid automobile, there’s one added dashboard benefit that’s on the way. And, it comes courtesy of a new arrangement between Lucid and a Nielsen-owned smart radio platform.

“Innovative and intuitive audio features” are on the way to Lucid Air vehicles, courtesy of Nielsen’s Gracenote. “By integrating Gracenote’s Smart Radio data and technology solutions, Lucid’s elegant entertainment interface will seamlessly connect drivers and passengers to audio content from a range of sources to optimize the in-car entertainment experience,” Nielsen boasts.

Specifically, Gracenote’s Radio Station ID will be employed in-dash across all Lucid vehicles.

This serves to simplify radio station selection and enable browsing lists and station categories, Nielsen’s Gracenote notes.

Gracenote powers the connected car experience for over 120 million cars on the road today.

— RBR+TVBR West Coast Bureau

WASHINGTON, D.C. — PILOT, NAB‘s technology innovation initiative, is now accepting submissions for the PILOT Innovation Challenge through 5pm Eastern on Monday, January 31. The program will provide mentorship and promotion to winning proposals, along with an opportunity to demonstrate their products at the 2022 NAB Show.

This year’s challenge is seeking startups and growing companies providing products that help address some of the key challenges and opportunities facing broadcasters over the next two to three years. The challenge is specifically seeking products or prototypes that align with three new focus areas of the 2022 NAB Show associated with the content lifecycle.

These areas are:

• “Create”: Focused on content creation from pre-production to post, including the latest tools and advanced workflow options to elevate storytelling.

• “Capitalize”: Focused on reach and ROI, including next-generation technologies creating new revenue streams and fueling the content economy.

• “Connect”: Focused on content distribution and delivery, from cloud computing to new media infrastructure.

“The Innovation Challenge presents a showcase for the cutting-edge ideas and innovations that can transform how broadcasters do business and serve their communities,” said PILOT Executive Director John Clark. “This year’s program aligns with NAB Show’s focus on the three main pillars of today’s content ecosystem as we provide renewed opportunities to help broadcasters evolve and adapt.”

Individuals, teams, companies, academic institutions and nonprofit organizations are eligible to apply subject to the Challenge’s official rules of participation. Up to 10 finalists will be selected by a panel of industry experts by early March, with up to three winning proposals being announced the week of March 28, 2022. Participants can review the judging criteria on the PILOT website.

Winners will be selected to receive relevant mentorship, feedback, numerous opportunities to engage with broadcasters and a trip to the annual NAB Show, held April 23-27, 2022 in Las Vegas. They will be provided exhibit space on the NAB Show floor to demonstrate their prototype to potential customers, investors and partners.

To apply please click here.

MIAMI BEACH, FLA. — South Florida has the Brightline high-speed rail service. Now, its beach cities have Breezeline to add to the mix.

No, it’s not a new train service, although Miami Beach could use one to connect it to downtown Miami. Rather, it is the new name for the nation’s eighth-largest cable operator, today owned by Canadian multimedia company Cogeco.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

No, we’re not talking about stations tied in some way to Bobby Vinton but, rather, the town of Vinton, Va. Here, an AM radio station with an FM translator are heading to a new owner, pending FCC approval.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

NEW YORK — Emerson Coleman, the SVP/Programming at Hearst Television, is retiring in summer 2022. His successor has just been named, and it is the person who is joining the operation to serve as VP/Programming under Coleman, who will guide her until he says farewell.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

NEW YORK — Discovery, Inc. has become a minority owner of OpenAP, the advanced advertising company serving the television industry.

Discovery joins FOX, NBCUniversal and ViacomCBS in the joint venture.

The investment signals an expansion of Discovery’s existing relationship with OpenAP, having integrated with OpenID in April 2021 and more recently partnering with OpenAP on the launch of XPm, the TV publisher backed cross-platform measurement framework.

“The commitment to OpenAP furthers Discovery’s strategy of building a technical framework that enables cross-platform audience-based buying and creating collaborative support for alternative currency standards,” OpenAP says, adding that it will help further its ability to grow the overall market for audience-based advertising ‘and expand the breadth and scale of its services across cross-platform identity, measurement and planning.”

Discovery Chief U.S. Advertising Sales Officer Jon Steinlauf and Jim Keller, EVP/Digital Ad Sales and Advanced Advertising, will each represent the company on OpenAP’s Board of Directors.

Additionally, Discovery will be able to contribute to OpenAP’s corporate strategy and product roadmap, while gaining further operational and technical efficiencies by activating audiences centrally through OpenAP.

“Discovery is excited to take an active role shaping the future of advanced audience buying,” Keller said. “Given our current momentum, influence and growth of audience-based sales, we believe Discovery can help further the work OpenAP has been doing to initiate meaningful change in the market.”

OpenAP works with more than 100 advertisers following the 2019 launch of the OpenAP Market with centralized advanced audiences able to be distributed to all national TV publishers regardless of platform.

“There is no denying that automotive dealers have been on a wild ride over the past two years, bouncing from one extreme to another,” says local advertising analyst Gordon Borrell.

A new report from his Borrell Associates recounts the events from the last 24 months that have changed the automotive advertising environment and previews what is to come.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

LOS ANGELES — In 1997, a trio of Class A FM radio stations at 92.7 MHz entered into a “trimulcast,” in a bid to serve the entire Los Angeles DMA. At first it was “Lite.” Then, it was “Jill,” the cheeky female response to first-adjacent Adult Hits “JACK FM.”

Today, two of those three stations remain and serve as Southern California’s home for Educational Media Foundation‘s Worship Music-focused Air1 noncommercial network. Until recently, however, the same issues that plagued the former formats for this facility remained — poor penetration in central Los Angeles.

That issue has now been resolved, thanks to an FM translator and the use of GeoBroadcast Solutions’ MaxxCasting system.

A “Common” settlement reached in 2019 is also an important factor for EMF.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

Why does Gray Television have an interest in a low-power television station licensed to a self-described “beautiful small town nestled in the hills of Southern Middle Tennessee?”

The fact that Lewisburg, Tenn., is an hour south of Music Row has everything to do with the broadcast TV company’s latest LPTV investment.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

RBR+TVBR OBSERVATION

As some three dozen lucky radio industry cognoscenti gathered in Las Vegas on January 6 to enjoy the 2022 Consumer Electronics and QR Code Showcase in Sin City, a veteran radio industry professional widely known for creating Classic Rock as an answer to hair-band free playlists fired off a fiery blog post that lambasted radio for shooting itself in the foot.

What was the problem? For the week ending January 2, 2022, Media Monitors’ Spot Ten Radio report showed Sirius XM accounting for some 33,794 spots aired across the AM and FM stations it tracks.

The latest Spot Ten Radio reports shows that it was likely a one-time deal, as the satellite radio company was absent from the top 10 for the week ending January 9.

Still, the presence of Sirius XM during that end-of-year week when subscription renewals are important is, in Fred Jacobs‘ view, a huge error in judgement, or perhaps a tremendous blunder.

We respectfully disagree and see no reason to panic and fret over radio advertisements designed to bring more attention to audio content. After all, it is Radio that allowed Sirius XM to even exist.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)