Industry News

A group of Capitol Hill Democrats in both the House and Senate made it clear this week that they want legislation adopted that would force WWOR-9 in Secaucus, N.J., owned by FOX, to turn its attention away from the Big Apple and focus instead on the Garden State.

Interestingly, little was mentioned about the “New Jersey News Network,” operating on co-channel signals covering Northern New Jersey and the five boroughs of the City of New York.

Perhaps they knew about its sale, as that’s just been consummated. Who’s the buyer?

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Add Saga Communications to the growing calendar of media companies that will be releasing their third quarter financial results during the first week of November.

Be sure to follow RBR+TVBR on Twitter, so you’ll get Breaking News as it happens.

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Travel to the north of Stillwater, Okla., via U.S. Highway 177, and you’ll reach Ponca City. It’s home to the Pioneer Woman Museum, and a museum devoted to regional gasoline brand Conoco.

It’s also home to the broadcasting, news, sports, and media entertainment platform operating under the Ponca Post brand. Until now, two radio brands have been under Ponca Post’s operations. Soon, two more will be added to the mix.

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Here’s another warning to MVPDs from a global market intelligence organization regarding the continued wave of “cord cutting” inflicting harm on the cable and DBS service provider’s growth prospects in the near-term.

“Video cord cutting is expected to strip nearly $33.6 billion in annual revenue from traditional U.S. multichannel services” by the end of 2025.

That’s according to a report released this week by Kagan.

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What’s the Deal? That’s a question we ask in the just-released RBR+TVBR Fall 2021 Special Report. The broadcast deal flow sank to a decade-long low in 2020, although TV M&A activity is strong. The trend seems to be cemented for 2021, unless a surprise mega-transaction for Radio emerges in Q4.

Is deregulation the deal ignitor needed for radio? Are over-leveraged, revenue-challenged media properties particularly vulnerable, and acquisition targets from cash-rich enterprises? The conversation is poised to continue at a Forecast 2022 session that’s worthy of every broadcast leader’s presence — and perhaps a financier or broker, too.

An esteemed panel of investment specialists will take a hard look at the status of 2021 and the future of 2022 for broadcast investments in this “fact-based, tire kicking” session.

With Guggenheim Securities Senior Advisor Drew Marcus as the session moderator, the transactions outlook will take center stage as Wells Fargo Securities Managing Director and Senior Equity Media/Cable Analyst Steven Cahall participates in a discussion alongside Noble Capital Markets Managing Director/TMT Christopher Ensley and veteran media broker Richard A. Foreman.

The morning session on November 16 at Forecast 2022 could see Foreman elaborate on commentary shared to readers in the Fall 2021 RBR+TVBR Special Report.

Richard A. Foreman, appearing at Forecast 2022 on Nov. 16, 2021 in New York.

Looking at the deal landscape, Foreman believes the radio industry has really been in a funk when it comes to transactions. “That’s created by a few buried issues,” he said. “You’re dealing with a technology today that is over 100 years of age that has withstood the hands of time greatly, but it is wearing. And, there are tremendous competitive products out there that really compete against it.”

Thanks to these new digitally delivered audio options, combined with the pandemic, radio has had what Foreman called “tremendous sluggishness in revenue.”

When Foreman looks at the television deal-making landscape, he expresses confidence in the fact that there are buyers — including the mega groups and Byron Allen-led Allen Media Group. The key problem? “There is no inventory,” he said. “That’s it. Period. And the prices being paid for television are eight to nine times trailing cash flow. But, you can’t find anything.”

For more, be sure to be present November 16 at Forecast 22 in New York.
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Here’s a story of interest to those who follow emergency alerting in the United States:

The FCC has now published the list of questions that it asked major wireless companies about the recent national test of the Wireless Emergency Alert system.

Answers from the companies to the questions were already available on the FCC website, but those answers make more sense now that the original questions are also publicly available.

The national WEA test was held in August concurrently with the national EAS test that involved broadcasters. The test would have been seen only by mobile users who had opted in on their devices.

The commission had sent letters to Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T ahead of time asking them to file voluntary comments about the performance of the test on their networks. (Read the letter.)

Among the questions it asked each to answer were: Did the carrier receive the nationwide test message and transmit it to its subscribers in all geographic areas where it offers WEA coverage? At what time, to the closest millisecond, did its gateway receive the alert from FEMA IPAWS, and when did it transmit the alert to subscribers? Were there complications with alert processing or transmission? What differences were noted in WEA performance between 3G, 4G and 5G networks?

The carriers’ responses are public; the links below will open or download their filed replies:

AT&T is confident the alert was transmitted to all geographic areas. The company said alert transmission to subscribers started 40 seconds after it received it from IPAWS. AT&T had employees in 37 cities enabling the test alert on a variety of Android and iOS devices and found a 99% completion rate, though apparently the test alert was received twice by some users. “We believe we understand the reason and are working with the vendor to confirm the cause of this duplication,” it wrote.

Verizon cited a 55-second turnaround time. It said it saw several cell sites restart at various times during the alert, so those sites were late to broadcast the alert, but it said customer impact would be minimal due to coverage redundancy. “The device would ignore the later alert broadcast of the restarted cell site as a duplicated alert because the devices had already received the same alert earlier from other available cell sites.” It also noted that it received anecdotal reports that some consumer handsets didn’t receive the alert, but said some users may have misunderstood how to opt into the relatively new State/Local alert category on their devices.

And T-Mobile said it had more 50 devices monitoring the test and that it had experienced no issues, even though real WEA alerts were issued in some parts of the country during the test. T-Mobile redacted some of the information in the public version of its letter, citing security reasons.

 

The post Carriers Report Success in National WEA Test appeared first on Radio World.

APM Studios, the podcast production division of American Public Media, has named a new Chief Content Officer while also putting a Chief Strategy Officer in place.

For Breaking News when it happens, be sure to follow RBR+TVBR on Twitter!

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Office of FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington has made a pair of personnel announcements.

[Visit Radio World’s People News Page]

Marco Peraza will join the office as a wireline advisor and also advice on signal security issues. He previously served as a law clerk to Judge Michael B. Brennan on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Peraza also worked as a software engineer with Microsoft before going to law school. He will replace Carolyn Roddy who is joining the FCC International Bureau.

Erin Boone will take over the chief of staff position along with maintaining her position as a wireless advisor.

Send news of engineering and executive personnel changes to radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post Peraza Joins Simington’s Office appeared first on Radio World.

From our Who’s Buying What page: Inovonics reported that the new FM 90 Radio Unity in India chose the 719N DAVID IV FM Broadcast Processor.

The community radio station is in the tribal Narmada district.

[See Our Who’s Buying What Page]

“The station launch is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s long-term vision for India to promote the empowerment of tribal youth,” Inovonics said in its announcement.

“System Integrator and Inovonics’ partner BECIL [Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Ltd.] chose the 719N DAVID IV FM Broadcast Processor to integrate with the installation because of its audio processing capabilities and unique feature set.”

Inovonics DAVID IV 719N

BECIL provides radio and TV project consultancy, system integration and turnkey installations.

The station was launched on India´s 75th Independence Day. Inovonics noted that the station is near the 582-foot statue of statesman Sardar Patel, the tallest statue in the world and almost twice the height of the Statue of Liberty.

Inovonics’ Regional Sales Manager is Mukesh Chaudhary.

Suppliers and users are both welcome to send news for Who’s Buying What to radioworld@futurenet.com.

 

The post FM 90 Radio Unity Chooses Inovonics Processor appeared first on Radio World.

COLMAR, FRANCE — If there every was a fairy tale town in Europe, the city of Colmar in France’s Alsace region may be the best example. Its old town, replete with a “little Venice” canal and numerous architectural treasures, is home to some 69,000 residents.

Here, FM radio reception is very good, with no less than 19 stations beaming from Mulhouse, a 40 minute drive to the south.

Travel another 10 minutes and you’ll reach Basel, Switzerland, a city of more than 171,000. Five Swiss FM stations can be heard, in addition to FMs tied to the large SWR regional broadcaster over the Rhine in Germany.

While that may seem small in number, the total number of FMs expected to be on the air in Basel in less than three years is zero.

Welcome to the next station to not only say goodbye to AM, but also to FM.

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