Industry News

Scott Incz

Broadcast equipment manufacturer BW Broadcast has shut down, at least temporarily, after the death of its co-founder Scott Incz, according to BW’s U.S. distributor SCMS.

The manufacturer’s other co-founder, Roger Howe, died last year.

SCMS President Bob Cauthen said he was notified last week by BW Broadcast that Incz had died but that he had no further details.

Cauthen said he expects BW “will be reopened at some point under a new ownership.”

“As the U.S. distributor, we will continue to provide service and parts to our U.S. customers as well as offer service at our North Carolina corporate facility and provide parts as they are available,” Cauthen said. “We have a significant stock of finished product and parts to accomplish this. Additionally, we will be able to work closely with several BW employees for worldwide service support.”

BW Broadcast makes transmitters, audio processors, monitors and other equipment. It was founded by Roger Howe and Scott Incz in 1997. Howe died in early 2020.

“Scott was a valued business partner for many years,” said Matt Cauthen, vice president of SCMS, “and more importantly, a friend. He will be missed.”

The post BW Broadcast Closes, at Least Temporarily appeared first on Radio World.

According to an amended statement of ownership filed Monday with the SEC, the sixth-largest institutional investor in radio industry pure-play Saga Communications has lowered its attributable interest in the company.

Based on reported share totals as of March 30, this puts this investment management house founded by Larry Fink out of the top 10 of Saga’s Wall Street dollar-injectors.

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The Museum of Broadcast Communications has revealed the selection of the Radio Hall of Fame 2021 nominees, comprised of 24 people and shows in six categories. The nominees were chosen by the Radio Hall of Fame Nominating Committee, with input from the radio industry and listeners. 

 Voting for inductees began July 12 in four of six categories:

• Longstanding Local/Regional (20 years or more)
• Active Local/Regional (10 years or more)
• Longstanding Network/Syndication (20 years or more)
• Longstanding Network/Syndication (20 years or more)

These categories will be voted on by a panel of 600 industry professionals.  

On July 26, listeners nationwide will vote on the other two categories, Music Format On-Air Personality and Spoken Word On-Air Personality. The winners in those categories will be determined by the public and the Radio Hall of Fame Nominating Committee. The outcome of the listener vote will count as one vote among the committee votes.

Radio listeners may vote once starting July 26 at www.radiovote.com. 

The 2021 Radio Hall of Fame inductees will be announced Monday, August 16, and honored in-person at the 2021 Radio Hall of Fame induction ceremony on October 28 at Chicago’s Wintrust Grand Banking Hall. Tickets will go on sale August 16. 

THE 2021 RADIO HALL OF FAME NOMINEES TO BE VOTED ON BY INDUSTRY VOTING PANEL ARE: 

Longstanding Local/Regional (20 years or more) 

John & Ken- KFI-AM / Los Angeles 

Melvin Lindsey-Washington (The Quiet Storm) 

Matt Siegel- WXKS-FM “KISS 108” / Boston 

Brother Wease (Alan Levin)- WAIO-FM Radio 95.1 / Rochester, NY 

  

Active Local/Regional (10 years or more) 

Laurie De Young- WPOC-FM /Baltimore 

Mercedes Martinez- KMXB-FM/ Las Vegas 

Elliot Segal- WWDC-FM “DC101” / Washington, DC 

Bob Stroud- WDRV-FM “97.1 The Drive” / Chicago 

  

Longstanding Network/Syndication (20 years or more) 

Dr. Bobby Jones-host, The Bobby Jones Radio Show 

Dan Patrick-host, The Dan Patrick Show 

Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me– NPR

Suzyn Waldman-color commentator, New York Yankees Network 

  

Active Network/Syndication (10 years or more) 

Bob & Sheri-co-hosts, The Bob & Sheri Show 

Kim Komando-host, The Kim Komando Show 

Sid Mark-host, Sounds of Sinatra 

Chris “Mad Dog” Russo-host, Chris “Mad Dog” Russo Show on SiriusXM 

  

THE 2021 RADIO HALL OF FAME NOMINEES TO BE VOTED ON BY LISTENERS/RADIO HALL OF FAME NOMINATING COMMITTEE ARE: 

  

Music Format On-Air Personality 

Russ Parr-host, The Russ Parr Show 

Javier Romero-morning host, WAMR-FM /Miami 

Alex Sensation-morning host, Spanish Broadcasting System (SBS) 

Steven Van Zandt-host, Little Steven’s Underground Garage 

  

Spoken Word On-Air Personality 

Alex Bennett-morning host & talk show personality 

Larry Elder-host, The Larry Elder Show, Salem Media 

Preston Elliot and Steve Morrison-co-hosts of Preston & Steve-93.3 WMMR / Philadelphia 

Sally Jessy Raphael-talk show personality 

   

Kraig T. Kitchin, the Radio Hall of Fame chairman, commented: “I’m so thrilled to recognize our 2021 nominees, and look forward to our upcoming in-person induction ceremony in Chicago Thursday, October 28. We’ll not only welcome 2021 inductees, but we will also welcome and honor the 2020 inductee class on that special evening this fall.” 

Dennis Green, who serves as the Radio Hall of Fame’s Nominating Committee chair, added, “It is an honor to chair the Nominating Committee of the Radio Hall of Fame and recognize our industry’s most esteemed professionals and their tremendous achievements informing and entertaining audiences throughout their careers. We look forward to welcoming the 2021 inductees as well as the 2020 inductees to honor them in person this year in Chicago.” 

The Mix Group is a presenting sponsor of the 2021 Radio Hall of Fame induction ceremony.  The Radio Hall of Fame was founded by the Emerson Radio Corporation in 1988. The Museum of Broadcast Communications took over operations in 1991. 

Don Backus has announced his retirement.

He is well known in broadcasting for his equipment sales and marketing roles at companies like Rohde & Schwarz, ENCO, BE and Audio Broadcast Group. And for two decades before that, he came up through the station side, in management, on-air, news, sales and ownership.

Throughout his career, he has maintained close ties to the state of Michigan.

Backus attended Michigan State University in East Lansing, where he worked at the carrier current radio station. His early career included programming, production and on-air positions at WVIC in East Lansing, doing mornings and middays; WITL in Lansing doing afternoons; and WSJM in St. Joseph doing middays and FM programming.

At the microphone of WVIC(FM) East Lansing, Mich., in 1979

From 1983 to 1993, he was co-owner, president and general manager of FM station WDBI in Tawas City, Mich., where he also worked on-air and as chief engineer. His final station role was as general sales manager of the Williams Communications stations in Longview and Tyler, Texas.

His career in technology sales started at Audio Broadcast Group, another Michigan firm, which he joined in 1994 and where he was a sales engineer and digital systems manager.

“I moved into the technology side when I realized that my passion for broadcasting could be channeled into enabling broadcasters to use the newer technology coming onto the market to both improve programming and profitability,” he told me. “I felt then, and still feel, that my experience as a station manager provided me with an empathy all too rare in equipment sales.”

At the 1985 NAB Show

He later joined radio automation provider ENCO Systems in 1999 and held the position of VP of sales and marketing. A highlight of his time there was winning a contract with National Public Radio as part of its ContentDepot rollout to provide 125 automation systems to affiliate stations.

After that he became the eastern U.S. sales manager for Broadcast Electronics, where he sold automation systems, broadcast transmitters and mobile and social media platforms.

And for the past four years Backus has been North American Account Manager, Radio Transmitters for Rohde & Schwarz, where a key responsibility has been to be that company’s face to the U.S. market for its liquid-cooled solid-state FM transmitters.

He estimates he has traveled a half million miles in that position. “The R&S people are great and were a dream to work with,” he said.

Backus has been part of the fabric of the radio technology side of our biz. He has been a member of the National Radio Systems Committee, active in several of its subcommittees and working groups. He also has been a member of the NAB Radio Technology Committee, working on its Next Generation Architecture Digital Radio Working Group.

He’s a director of the Michigan Association of Broadcasters Foundation and he served two terms as associate director of the MAB itself. For 25 years he has helped plan the engineering content of the MAB’s annual Great Lakes Broadcast Conference.

“Since Michigan State college radio in the fall of 1972, I’ve always considered myself a broadcaster,” he told me. “I have never had a job that wasn’t interesting, challenging or fun, and most of the time, all three.”

He and his wife of 48 years, Nancy, live in Grand Rapids. They plan to travel and spend time with their five grandchildren.

“The technology, however powerful, isn’t the point,” he told me in a career summary. “The point is the benefit that you, your people and your listeners get out of it.”

The post Don Backus Retires appeared first on Radio World.

Plains Independent School District is one of the licensees from whom the FCC is awaiting renewal applications.

Eleven radio stations in Texas face the loss of their licenses if they fail to apply for renewal by the end of this month. They include three full-service FMs, three AMs and five low-power FMs.

The Federal Communications Commission released the list of stations that it says haven’t filed yet. “Their licenses will expire as of Aug. 1, 2021, provided no renewal application is received by midnight on the date of expiration.”

The stations are:

KDSH(LP), Borger, Texas; Living River Ministries Inc.

KKFH(LP), Conroe, Texas; Fuente De Vida – Conroe Inc.

KRKF(LP), Corpus Christi, Texas; Stedfast Ministries

KBRA(FM), Freer, Texas; Cobra Broadcasting LLC – KBRA

KTEZ(LP), Killeen, Texas; Kates Media Group Inc.

KJJT(FM), Los Ybanez, Texas; Jesus Pena Acosta

KIRT(AM), Mission, Texas; Bravo Broadcasting Company, Inc.

KLBW(AM), New Boston, Texas; Chapel of Light

KOZA(AM), Odessa, Texas; Stellar Media Inc.

KPHS(FM), Plains, Texas; Plains Independent School District

KHDJ(LP), San Antonio, Texas; Educacional MTY

The post 11 Texas Stations Face License Expiration appeared first on Radio World.

This is one in a series of articles from the ebook “The Real World of AoIP.”

Radio World recently asked several manufacturers to identify the most important technical development or trend in the use of AoIP.

At Wheatstone, Jay Tyler, director of sales, said AoIP today is all about access — access from home, access through the cloud, and especially about access for everyone.

“Our customer base has traditionally been the iHearts and Townsquares of the industry, but more recently, we’ve been getting calls from GMs of family-owned stations or of smaller regional station groups who find that they can’t maneuver in these times without AoIP,” he said.

“Events [of the pandemic] just pushed their plans for AoIP further up on the calendar.”

At the same time, he said, AoIP is following the same trajectory as IP in general and has become a lot more scalable.

“We can now scale the systems used by the iHearts and the Townsquares for those smaller operations and smaller budgets, and we can scale a lot about what makes AoIP useful by adding more and more functions to it. We started out replacing soundcards with AoIP drivers, and now we’re adding appliances, virtual mixers and UIs, software apps, and even, in the case of our Blade-4, codecs.”

Tyler said Wheatstone sees the cloud as the next trend in AoIP, and an important one for regional broadcasters or anyone who wants to join operations and get some of those cost savings.

“Wheatstone has been doing a lot with container platforms like Docker for some time, and this is a great option for running many different applications on a single machine or cloud instance.

“We’re talking about a very lightweight, resource-efficient VM, where one container could host WheatNet-IP audio processing and another could host the station automation. Each is totally isolated yet both run off the same OS kernel. One container communicates with the other through APIs and because each container operates independently of the other, you avoid unintended interactions between software components and eliminate a single point of failure,” Tyler said.

“The container virtualization layer is extremely flexible and can scale up as we need.”

The post Tyler on AoIP for Everyone appeared first on Radio World.

The National Association of Broadcasters Leadership Foundation’s Celebration of Service to America Awards, scheduled for July 10, will be shown on over 500 TV stations according to a release. Over 200 stations will air the program immediately with others airing it through Aug. 14.

The awards honor local radio and television stations from across the country for local community public service.

[Read: NAB Foundation Will Honor Lin-Manuel Miranda]

This is a list of finalist radio and TV stations. Tamron Hall will host the ceremonies.

In addition to the public service awards there will also be the first John D. Dingell, Jr. Award for Excellence, for a Congressmen.

Broadway writer/actor Lin-Manuel Miranda will receive the 2021 Service to Leadership Award, the NAB Leadership Foundation’s highest individual honor. And Procter & Gamble will receive the 2021 Corporate Leadership Award.

 

The post NABLF Awards Air to on 500+ Local Stations Nationwide appeared first on Radio World.

Around Thanksgiving Day 2019, word first surfaced that veteran radio industry executive John Fullam would be retiring at year’s end. By late January 2020, his successor had been named.

Now, the man selected to take on Fullam’s duties has departed the company formerly known as Entercom. As a result, Fullam is back, serving as the interim SVP/Market Manager of Audacy‘s Denver stations.

Chuck Sullivan, who became SVP/Manager of KQMT-FM 99.5 “The Mountain,” KALC-FM “Alice 105.9, Adult Standards KEZW-AM 1430 and KQKS-FM 107.5 and KQKS-HD2 “Comedy 103.1″ on Feb. 3, 2020, is no longer with the company.

Sullivan joined Entercom in 2014 as the SVP/Market Manager for the company’s Milwaukee market. In 2015, his role expanded to include oversight of Entercom’s Madison, Wisc., stations. Prior to joining Entercom, Sullivan served in leadership roles for Cumulus Broadcasting, including as VP/Market Manager for the company’s Mobile cluster and as Market Manager for five stations in Destin-Fort Walton Beach, Fla. Before that, he served as a managing partner for Ocean Broadcasting in Wilmington, N.C., from 1996 to 2006.

Sullivan’s exit comes as KQKS Program Director Victor Starr has also exited Audacy.

He had been PD of the station since March 2016.

In a request for comment, an Audacy spokesperson tells RBR+TVBR Sullivan “has left the company to pursue other opportunities.”

In 1975, Fullam entered the radio business at a now-defunct company called the Home News Corporation. This saw him serve as VP/GM of venerable Rock station WRKI-FM “I95” in Brookfield, Conn., a popular station serving Fairfield County and Westchester County, N.Y. An October 1992 acceptance of similar duties at WKQI-FM in Detroit served as the catalyst for a 44-year career that saw him take key positions at AMFM Inc., Clear Channel, CBS Radio and Entercom, serving as SVP/GM/Market Manager of its Denver stations. Fullam gained that final role in November 2017, a two-year deal.

It is licensed to Ashland City, Tenn., but has a signal that covers all of Nashville during daylight hours. While the AM has just 35 watts at night, there’s a 100-watt FM translator that allows it to cover Nashville’s western neighborhoods.

These facilities are heading to a new licensee, pending FCC approval. And, it is a certainty that “The Mighty 790” is involved in their future.

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Its a tiny town in Lewis County, Mo., that had under 550 residents in the 2010 U.S. Census.

It’s important enough of a locale for Gray Television to make a deal for a low-powered TV station based in this tiny burgh.

There’s a perfectly good reason it is buying the facility, when one looks at a map.

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