Industry News

The Gracie Awards, presented by the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation (AWMF), has opened its call for entries for the 47th Annual Gracie Awards.

“The Gracie Awards celebrate and honor truly exceptional content by, for and about women,” AWMF President Becky Brooks said. “We know the circumstances of this year made production much more difficult, which is why we are more committed that ever
to honor the remarkable work by so many in our creative community.”

The Gracies is considered the AWMF’s chief fundraiser of the year, as it enables the alliance “to deliver on its promise of further the connection, education and recognition of women in media, even during difficult times,” said AWMF Board Chair Heather Cohen.

Cohen is again serving as a chair, alongside Crown Media Family Networks Chief Communications Officer Annie Howell, and veteran radio programming consultant Mike McVay.

The 2022 Gracie Awards entry eligibility air dates are from January 1, 2021 through December 31, 2021.

Early Bird rates for entries end on December 16, 2021, at 11:59 PM Eastern. The deadline for all entries is January 20, 2022, at 11:59 PM Eastern. Entry details including pricing, updated categories can be viewed at https://allwomeninmedia.org/gracies/call-for-entries/.

The application to judge the Gracies will be available soon.

Crown Media is a Diamond Sponsor of the 2022 Gracies.

NEW YORK — The Broadcasters Foundation of America has kicked off its annual year-end giving campaign with an appeal for tax-deductible donations that will allow the Foundation to continue providing financial assistance to those in broadcasting who need it most.

A 501(c)3 charity, the Broadcasters Foundation is the only organization dedicated exclusively to delivering financial aid to broadcasters and their families whose lives have been upended by tragic illness, accident, or catastrophe.

Personal donations to the Guardian Fund and corporate contributions to the Angel Initiative can be made at www.broadcastersfoundation.org/donate.

 

This year’s plea for donations follows a year-and-a-half of several cancelled fundraising events due to the COVID 19 pandemic, even as more broadcasters than ever are reaching out for monthly or emergency relief.

The Broadcasters Foundation will award more than $1.8 million in monthly and one-time emergency grants in 2021. Monthly grants have increased 75% and more than 500 emergency grants have been awarded since 2017. Over the past 20 years, the Broadcasters Foundation has distributed more than $15 million to broadcasters in need.

“Our grant recipients are hard-working broadcasters from across the country and from all size markets, who have been hit by challenging, often life-altering circumstances,” stated Scott Herman, Chairman of the Broadcasters Foundation of America. “With the support and generosity of the people in our industry, we can help your colleagues and their families get through their toughest times.”

“Requests for assistance have escalated at a significant rate over the past several years,” said Jim Thompson, Co-President of the Broadcasters Foundation. “Combined with the cancellation of several fundraising events due to the pandemic, personal and corporate donations are vital to continuing our charitable mission of disbursing financial aid to those in your industry who need it most.”

Co-President of the Broadcasters Foundation, Tim McCarthy, added, “As I become more involved with the day-to-day operations of the Broadcasters Foundation, I am in awe of the generosity of those in our business who give back by supporting our mission. I would ask everyone who has not contributed in the past to please join our cause and help your colleagues in need.”

Since its inception, the Broadcasters Foundation has distributed millions of dollars to thousands of needy broadcasters and their families. Individual donations can be made to the Guardian Fund, corporate contributions are accepted through the Angel Initiative, and bequests can be arranged through the Legacy Society.

To learn more or to donate, please contact the Broadcasters Foundation at 212-373-8250 or info@thebfoa.org or visit www.broadcastersfoundation.org.

When it comes to investing, financial blog Simply Wall St. notes that there are some useful financial metrics that can warn an investor when a business is potentially in trouble.

“When we see a declining return on capital employed (ROCE) in conjunction with a declining base of capital employed, that’s often how a mature business shows signs of aging,” the financial blog notes. “This reveals that the company isn’t compounding shareholder wealth because returns are falling and its net asset base is shrinking.”

On that note, Simply Wall St. took a magnifying glass to Saga Communications. What did the blog have to report? “We weren’t too upbeat about how things were going.”

Economic Forecasting: Broadcast Revenue Trends and Expectations for 2022 What do the experts have to say about the opportunities for broadcast advertising in the year ahead, along with the myriad challenges to growing its share? A Forecast 2022 panel of experts led by Jack Myers of MediaVillage are preparing now for what will certainly be a provocative discussion about who is going to “show us the money” in the year to come. Don’t miss out … join us at Forecast 2022 on November 16 in New York City. Click here for all of the details!

 

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One of the nation’s biggest media companies superserving U.S. Hispanic audiences has entered into a consent decree with the Media Bureau of the FCC that effectively resolves two online political file violations.

One incident occurred in Dallas. The other incident occurred in Houston.

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Audacy President and CEO David Field says he expects a full rebound in ad revenue in 2022 and the company’s third quarter 2021 report is proof of further progress in its recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The audio company, formerly known as Entercom, reported net revenues for Q3 this year were $329.4 million, up 23% compared to the same quarter in 2020. And revenues were up 8% sequentially from the second quarter this year.

Spot radio advertising revenues for the broadcaster, which has more than 200 radio stations, were $220.6 million which is up 21% from third quarter 2020. Digital revenues climbed 30% YoY posting revenue of $61.4 million for the most recent quarter.

[Read: Audacy Picks Former NYT Exec for Digital Business Hire]

Field on a quarterly earnings call on Tuesday morning said the company continues to drive forward with “its strategic transformation as a scaled multiplatform audio content and entertainment company, including broadcast, podcasting, digital audio, network, live events, music news and sports.”

The sports betting ad revenue windfall continues for Audacy, according to its earnings report. Field said on the call the company is projecting sports betting ad revenue will grow 100% for the year 2021. “We expect sports betting to grow into a $100 million ad category for us in a few years as legalized mobile sports betting continues to spread across the country,” he said, “including California, Texas and Florida.”

The well publicized supply-chain issues affecting the United States impacted Audacy in Q3, Field said, especially in the automotive sector. Automotive, which is Audacy’s number one advertiser segment, was off about 40% in Q3 compared to 2020 levels. The company revealed today it doesn’t expect automotive ad revenue to recover until sometime in 2023.

“The decline in auto ad spending accounted for a third of our third quarter revenue decrease versus 2019. Another third was due to the combined cancellation of Audacy events and the decline in advertising from third-party concerts, theme parks and festivals,” Field said.

The radio broadcaster, which returned to hosting live Audacy events in the third quarter, has seen a significant difference in the rate of recovery between its larger and smaller markets, according to Field. “The sharp contrast in market recovery reflects how larger markets were slower to reopen and faced more disruption to their local economies. For Audacy this differential has a meaningful impact on our performance as our portfolio is by the far the most concentrated in the largest markets versus any of our peers,” Field said on the earnings call.

Audacy in October announced the $40 million acquisition of WideOrbit’s digital audio streaming and ad tech business and then relaunched it as AmperWave, which will “enhance future growth opportunities for Audacy,” according to Field.

“This acquisition gives us control of our product roadmap to deliver enhanced consumer-facing live and on demand streaming features to our 170 million monthly listeners using the cloud-based distribution and monetization platform,” Field said.

The company also this week announced Brian Benedik has joined the broadcaster as Chief Revenue Officer. Benedik is well known to many broadcasters for his previous role at Katz Media Group.

Audacy listed approximately $1.7 billion of debt in its most recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

 

The post Audacy Q3 Ramps up the Revenue appeared first on Radio World.

ATLANTA — The broadcast television station licensee that is on target to complete its merger with Meredith Local Media within the next eight weeks has completed its offering of $1.3 billion in aggregate principal amount of 5.375% senior notes due 2031.

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TORONTO — It’s been likened to the plotline of HBO comedy-drama Succession, focused on a highly dysfunctional dynasty at one of the world’s largest media and entertainment conglomerate.

The family drama behind the future of Rogers Communications, one of North America’s biggest media entities, has dominated the headlines of the Sun tabloid and Financial Post. Now, it appears that the son of the company’s late founder, Ted Rogers, has been empowered to constitute a new board — something his siblings fought to stop.

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Of some 1,060 recent and prospective car buyers surveyed in the U.S., some 89% say a broadcast radio tuner should be standard equipment every car.

That’s according to new research released earlier today in London by Edison Research — a trend that is consistent across age groups.

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The author is with WHYU(LP), licensed to the American Militia Association, in Meyersdale, Pa.

Regarding the stories “LP-250 FM Petition Draws Lots of Interest” and “NAB Renews Objections to LP-250.”

The NAB has a single goal: looking out for the financial interests of incumbent, commercial, full-power stations.

It is well-known that many struggling LPFM stations are not only facing financial burdens keeping their stations on the air, but also to be heard by the people in the communities they serve.

In most rural areas, LPFM signals at 100 Watts ERP at 30m HAAT are simply not strong enough to overcome terrain and spacing of homes to be adequately tuned in for reliable listening. While this may be quite different for flat terrain metro areas, that is not the norm for the majority of LPFM stations.

The NAB and its members are quite pleased that LPFMs thus far have not had any significant negative impact on the number of listeners they receive for their full-power stations. They know that the LPFM signals are not strong enough or large enough to cause their listeners to seek out noncommercial local alternatives to their ad-bloated and nationally mirrored nonlocal content.

How do they wish to sway the FCC against any expansion in service for LPFMs? They allege that LPFMs do not and will not comply with FCC regulations.

This is just another ruse, as many LPFMs have been fined for breaking the rules, and when an LPFM causes actual interference, full-power stations retain their protected status and can force LPFMs off the air.

What they want is even greater protection and monopoly of the dial and to snuff out what they know is a potential problem for them — a potential reduction in listeners and advertiser dollars that have the tiniest potential of being redirected to LPFM underwriting.

The NAB has rejected every LPFM-related proposal for this reason alone. The opposition comments attempt to vilify all LPFMs as rule-breakers and toss out technical jargon to somehow convince regulators that an LPFM being able to be heard by their communities will flood the airwaves with interference.

The truth is that the NAB thinks it is unfair that a nonprofit station doesn’t pay as much as they do for listener acquisition, although full-power commercial stations can pay their fees without nearly as much financial concern as the low-power, weak-signaled LPFM station that can hardly be heard by any significant audience.

Two hundred and fifty watts is not anywhere close to the average full power of such stations, and to suggest otherwise is ridiculous.

Congress passed legislation authorizing such local community stations, surely with an intent that they could be heard by the communities they serve. Increasing that ability while continuing to limit interference and protecting the very stations the NAB supports would meet the needs of the legislative mandate.

The FCC should consider the NAB objections for what they are: nonsensical bias to further protect their financial interests.

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

The post Commentary: Skip the Nonsensical Bias About LPFM appeared first on Radio World.

Audacy will have a new CRO as of Dec. 1. Brian Benedik will become chief revenue officer at that time.

“As a key member of the executive team, Benedik will lead all aspects of revenue generation across corporate, national, regional and local levels and develop fully integrated, multiplatform sales solutions and breakthrough strategies to attract new revenue streams,” the company announced. Benedik succeeds Bob Philips.

[Visit Radio World’s People News Page]

Chief Operating Officer cited Benedik’s “key roles” in the past for audio publishers like Spotify, iHeart Radio, Audible and Katz Media.

Benedik most recently was VP/global head of revenue for Niantic, an AR developer platform and gaming publisher.

“For seven formative years at Spotify, Benedik was a key member of the senior leadership team as SVP/global head of sales and operations leading a team of over 550 people in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia Pacific regions,” Audacy stated. “As the leader of the Spotify Global Advertising Business, Benedik oversaw the direct, programmatic, podcast, re-seller and self-serve platform teams as well as ad and sales operations, trading, global agency and accounts and training groups.”

He also was founder and president of Katz Digital; president of Christal Radio within the Katz Media Group; and general sales manager for WHTZ(FM) New York at iHeartMedia. He has held advisory roles for Audible and Targetspot.

Send People News announcements to radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post Brian Benedik Joins Audacy in Revenue Role appeared first on Radio World.