XPost: alt.radio.broadcasting

Radio World

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NJBA Calls ZoneCasting an "Equipment Peddling Scheme"

Posted: 12 Jul 2022 11:21 AM PDT https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/business-and-law/njba-calls-zonecasting-an-equipment-peddling-scheme


The back and forth continues between ZoneCasting advocates and those who believe giving radio broadcasters the ability to geo-target programming and commercials using FM boosters — even for short periods of time — would be detrimental to the industry.

Even members of Congress have recently weighed in with opinions for and
against the use of the ZoneCasting technology from GeoBroadcast Solutions (GBS). The New Jersey Broadcasters Association’s (NJBA) opposition to geo-targeting echoes that of the National Association of Broadcasters and a list of companies that includes some of radio’s biggest broadcast groups. 

The proposal currently being considered by the FCC would allow broadcasters
to voluntarily utilize FM boosters to air unique, targeted programming on
those booster signals for several minutes per broadcast hour. ZoneCasting
has been in development by GBS since 2011. 

In recent comments, NJBA contends that permitting ZoneCasting’s operation will have a “negative effect on the clear undisturbed reception of our members’ radio station broadcasts, causing unavoidable and unresolvable interference that will harm our listeners in New Jersey.”

The broadcaster group focuses its comments on how geo-targeting from neighboring states could negatively impact New Jersey radio stations. NJBA
said offering “this type of wild west” entry into neighborhoods is a threat to the vast majority of New Jersey’s lower powered, fully licensed stations.

[Related: ZoneCasting Generates More Contention]

“Geo-targeting would allow New York’s, as well as other metros like Philadelphia and Allentown, etc., Class B radio stations that broadcast
signals over wide swaths of the Garden State’s geography, and its mostly Class A stations, to sell locally targeted advertising in our markets while denying the Class A stations in those markets to reciprocate in New York or other such cities,” NJBA wrote in comments to the FCC.

NJBA points to section 307(b) of the Communications Act that requires the
FCC to make “a fair and equitable distribution of radio service.”

New Jersey ended up with anything but this mandate, said NJBA. The damage
needs to be contained at some point and now is the time to avoid any
further disruption to our local radio broadcasters’ operations. Adding this splintering of new competitors will only further disrupt our industry and derail any hopes of recovery to 2019 levels, while repressing true
localism.”

The New Jersey group claims the proprietary ZoneCasting technology if
adopted would only “enrich GBS and its supporting equipment manufacturers.” And the group throws shade at those broadcasters who have pitched their
support of ZoneCasting.

“It just makes no sense for a cabal of named small broadcasters and
minority groups to throw their support behind an equipment peddling scheme absent other undisclosed factors. 

“The FCC should ask each of the Geo Broadcast solutions ZoneCasting proponents if there are any financial or other undisclosed arrangements
behind their support, such as donations, promised discounts or other such undisclosed munificence, in exchange for the stated support of the
proponents, so that there is full transparency to the support that Geo Broadcast Solutions claims it has,” NJBA commented.

NJBA continued: “To be clear, the NJBA is resolutely opposed to any
proposal that advocates boosters being able to originate programming. Period.”

The letter, signed by Paul Rotella, president and CEO of NJBA concludes: “Rather than helping local broadcasting, ZoneCasting could increase
listening to out of market stations, again adversely impacting the
usefulness of the EAS, while creating new pockets of interference all
without any way for the New Jersey Class A broadcasters to oppose this destructive policy.”

[Related: HD Radio Developer Takes Close Look at ZoneCasting]

The post NJBA Calls ZoneCasting an Equipment Peddling Scheme appeared first
on Radio World.


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Radio With Five Os

Posted: 12 Jul 2022 09:56 AM PDT https://www.radioworld.com/global/radio-with-five-os


There are thousands of radio stations, thousands of streaming stations, thousands of podcasts and thousands of listening options — with most, if
not all, offering their services online. It’s not too often, however, that
a website stands out as pretty unique and very creative in design. But, may
I present “Radiooooo” … or the word radio but with five o’s … or radiooooo.com.

Radiooooo, the website, is special because it’s both international and designed to represent the various decades of music style. You can click on
a country, then click on a decade, and suddenly youre hearing music from
(e.g.) Ireland in the 1920’s. It’s simply a fascinating trip through music history. Although, I do wish it offered a few other choices of audio programming to make it more like radio. 

Dubbed The Musical Time Machine, the home page featured below depicts its
free, basic service.


There is also a paid, premium service. The paid features offer history and full tracks and allow for rewinding audio and bookmarking. But with or
without the paid version, what this website shows us is a very creative way
to reach listeners with unique programming.   

The difference between services is the playlists size and those bonus
options. The rate is $4.99 per month or $49.99 per year for the premium service. 

The name may be a bit of a misnomer as great radio is anything but just a
bunch of songs. As we know, it’s personalities, local information, at times “theater” and so much more. But we’ll assume that maybe there’ll be more
than music in the future of the Radiooooo.

How fun would it be if you had a choice of not just music, but on-air personalities from each decade (as in un-telescoped air checks), radio commercials and newscasts from each country and each decade? Though
certainly quite an effort to program so much content with limited
availability, it still would be a fun addition!     

[Visit Radio Worlds Global News Page]

The post Radio With Five O’s appeared first on Radio World.


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Wyoming Overhauls SECC to Draft State EAS Plan

Posted: 12 Jul 2022 08:41 AM PDT https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/business-and-law/wyoming-overhauls-secc-to-draft-state-eas-plan


Most State Emergency Communications Committees (SECC) have submitted their state EAS plans as required by the FCC.

Part of the FCC’s EAS evolution for improving emergency alerting is having states utilize the new Alert Reporting Service (ARS). The ARS is an
in-house online filing system adopted by the FCC in 2018 to modernize State
EAS Plan submissions and create uniformity.

To help evaluate the response to the new procedures, we share replies from
Paul Montoya. Hes the state chairman of the Wyoming SECC.
Paul Montoya, state chairman of the Wyoming SECC

Radio World: What was your experience using the ARS to file Wyoming’s new state EAS plan?  

Paul Montoya: The ARS system was a little tedious to use. I used the
system’s upload process for setting alert codes. This seemed to work well with no issues once I got the formatting in the template correct.

The ARS system allows two ways to enter Presidential Alert Monitoring Assignments. One is to use the FCC Excel template, complete the template,
then batch import the whole spreadsheet. The other option is to manually
enter each station and monitoring information directly. I chose the latter
in order to look at each station more closely.

I know the assignments are not perfect. However, with the annual review, we
can continue to tweak things as needed.

[Related: Not All SECCs Have Submitted State EAS Plans]

RW: Was Wyoming’s SECC active prior to the FCC’s recent rule update? 

Montoya:  We are a newly-formed group and have made significant changes to
our state plan. In the past, the plan has been administered by the state broadcast association. The plan has not been very functional, especially
for national or statewide alerts and testing. 

We tried to include a wide cross section of members on the committee. I
advise states to make up their committee with representatives from all
groups that will be involved with sending and receiving alerts. And to be
aware of all people groups that need to be alerted.

RW: What were some of the major changes to the Wyoming state EAS plan?

Montoya: In an effort to allow direct alerting from our county emergency managers, we went from 11 to 23 operational areas. The new operational
areas are identical to the county numbering we use in the state.

In addition, the LP1 station in each operational area is a Wyoming Public
Media (WYM) station. This allows us to now use the WPM network as a
backbone for statewide and national alerts.


RW: Any other changes or improvements at the state level? 

Montoya: Each county emergency manager now has direct access to their LP1 station in the area for alerting their county residents directly.

And each LP2 (secondary broadcast station) in the area has a high-power FM signal with program origination within the county. We have eliminated using
AM signals because of the difficulty PN (participating) stations have had monitoring these signals due to higher noise levels in the AM band and many times the low power of these stations.

RW: Do you have any recommendations for improvements to the national system?

Montoya: My criticism of the current national system would be the continued
use of AM stations for PEP. In states like Wyoming it is almost impossible
to monitor our PEP stations − KTWO(AM) in Casper, Wyo., and KOA(AM) in Denver. This is a system that should be abandoned.

(Editors note: Montoya is director of engineering for Wyoming Public Media)

The post Wyoming Overhauls SECC to Draft State EAS Plan appeared first on
Radio World.


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WorldCast Highlights New Audemat FM Probe

Posted: 11 Jul 2022 03:21 PM PDT https://www.radioworld.com/show-news/ibc/worldcast-highlights-new-audemat-fm-probe


WorldCast Systems will show the Audemat FM Probe at the IBC show in
September.

The solution enables monitoring, measurement and analysis of the FM signal. “Broadcasters and regulation authorities can perform remote monitoring of a set list of channels as well as verify the conformity of their FM network
with both legislation and their broadcasting needs,” the company said.

The Audemat FM Probe comes in a 1U frame. It can monitor up to eight
programs continuously and 50 programs sequentially. Functions include
analysis tools for spectrums (RF, MPX, audio), RDS decoding, alarm
notification by email, SNMP traps and Syslog, telemetry board as well as recording and scan monitoring. 


[For News on This and Other Shows See Our Show News Page]

“For the first time in a Audemat monitoring product for FM, the Audemat FM Probe embeds the Kantar watermarking technology to decode and monitor the
INK code of any station, thereby allowing to monitor if the watermark for audience measure is well broadcasted at the correct time,” WorldCast said

“With the audio recording and streaming feature, radio broadcasters have
the capacity to hear, in real-time, the sound rendering of their program.”

The product is compatible with SNMP Network Management Systems such as
Kybio, and is enhanced with ScriptEasy technology. The FM + ScriptEasy two-in-one solution enables telemetry, facility management and web page customization for aggregation and display of relevant data. 

IBC Stand: 8.C58

[Related: “WorldCast Builds on KYBIO”]



The post WorldCast Highlights New Audemat FM Probe appeared first on Radio World.


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Reading service deploys Arrakis boards

Posted: 11 Jul 2022 03:12 PM PDT https://www.radioworld.com/tech-and-gear/buyers-guide/reading-service-deploys-arrakis-boards


Radio World’s Buyer’s Guide section this month focuses on consoles and mixers.

Radio Reading Services of Greater Cincinnati is using two MARC-15 boards by Arrakis. 

Since 1977 Radio Reading Services has provided access to print material for 13,000 listeners living in Greater Cincinnati who are blind, visually
impaired or unable to read conventional print. Volunteers read local and national newspapers, popular magazines, grocery store ads and public
service announcements for its listeners to participate fully in their communities. 

“Listeners access RRS through a subcarrier of WGUC,” said Manager of Volunteer Services Jennifer M. Holladay. “Each radio receiver has been
tuned to receive our station because we provide our listeners access to copyright materials.”

She said RRS updated very old sound boards to the MARC-15 board. 

“The choice to go with the MARC was an easy one since we have had the first one for a couple years now. Staff and volunteers access the boards and find them very efficient to use.”
Anthony DeGregorio with the MARC-15 Board.

Holladay likes the multiple outputs so that more than one volunteer can
record at one time, and the efficiency to control playback features. 

“The modular nature of the MARC was valuable for us, so that we can
customize the board to fit our needs. We also appreciated that the MARC is
a larger board, which gives us enough inputs to connect all of our equipment.”

[Read More Buyers Guide Reviews Here]

The MARC-15 is a 15-channel analog modular board with three stereo outputs. Connections are by balanced RJ-45.

Available modules include microphone, stereo line, phone, studio monitor
and USB. With the latter, a user can play and record in digital with a
Windows PC or Mac, connected by USB cable, or record audio from the board
with any third-party software.



The post Reading service deploys Arrakis boards appeared first on Radio
World.


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InSoft Rolls Out AirLink Cloud

Posted: 11 Jul 2022 03:02 PM PDT https://www.radioworld.com/tech-and-gear/products/insoft-rolls-out-airlink-cloud


InSoft has a new virtual studio offering called AirLink Cloud that it says
lets you record a video podcast in HD to the cloud, invite multiple remote guests and stream live over social media.

A starter plan is free, with Lite and Pro versions available for $25 and
$39 per month on an annual contract, according to its website.

The paid versions include AI-based automated video switching, your logo, overlays and customized backgrounds, as well as more recording and storage time. The pro version has 15 hours of cloud-based, multi-camera recording
and 10 hours of cloud storage.


According to distributor BSW, AirLink Cloud Pro uses broadcast-quality bidirectional audio codecs and handles mix-minus feeds to each participant.
It also feeds on-air host video to each participant to support on-air interactions.

InSoft is familiar to many in radio for its HDVMixer product.

[Check Out More Products at Radio World’s Products Section]

The post InSoft Rolls Out AirLink Cloud appeared first on Radio World.


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Not All SECCs Have Submitted State EAS Plans

Posted: 11 Jul 2022 01:00 PM PDT https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/headlines/not-all-seccs-have-submitted-state-eas-plans


The FCC is still waiting on some State Emergency Communications Committees
to file state Emergency Alert System plans. It’s not clear how many states failed to file the plans by the July 5 deadline, but a majority of SECCs successfully completed the process, according to the FCC. The commission declined to comment on the specific filing numbers thus far.

State EAS plans, which govern EAS operations and activation procedures in
their respective states, are filed annually and must receive FCC approval.
The FCC’s website currently shows only one approved state EAS plan (Illinois). The FCC notes it has 60 days to approve state said plans. Compliance is required. 

“SECCs Emergency Alert System plans are an important part of emergency preparedness. The majority of SECCs filed EAS plans with the FCC and our
Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau has begun its review process,” according to a statement from the FCC.

In a public notice released last week the commission encouraged SECCs to
file their state EAS plans as soon as possible and offered assistance if necessary. 

Related: Importance of State EAS Plan in California Is Clear

“In light of the Congressionally-recognized importance of State EAS Plans
in promoting the overall effectiveness of the EAS and in ensuring the
public can receive potentially life-saving messages, the bureau stands
ready to assist any SECCs that may need help either with the commission’s rules governing State EAS Plans or with utilizing the ARS [Alert Reporting System].”

The ARS online filing system combines the FCC EAS Test Reporting System, or ETRS, with a new electronic one for filing state plans, one that the
commission says has been streamlined. 

Requests for aid in completing State EAS Plan submissions can be emailed to David.Munson@fcc.gov.

The post Not All SECCs Have Submitted State EAS Plans appeared first on
Radio World.


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Free Press Vet Carmen Scurato Joins FCC

Posted: 11 Jul 2022 12:15 PM PDT https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/free-press-vet-carmen-scurato-joins-fcc


This story was originally posted by our sister publication Broadcasting & Cable.

Jessica Rosenworcel has tapped a policy veteran, Carmen Scurato, to be her legal advisor for consumer and public safety issues, and shuffled some of
the responsibilities of her current legal advisors.

Most recently, Scurato had been association legal director and senior
counsel for telecommunications, privacy and technology, for Free Press,
which has long advocated for the net neutrality rules, media competition,
and broadband subsidy spending that are also priorities for Rosenworcel.
Photo via Free Press

Scuratos resume also includes VP of policy and general counsel for the
National Hispanic Media Coalition, the FCCs Consumer Advisory Committee and work with the Department of Justice.

If nominee-in-waiting Gigi Sohn were to make it on the commission, Scurato would be a familiar face. They shared a dais in March 2019 when both
testified before Congress about the anticompetitive effects of a Sprint-T-Mobile merger, even sitting side by side and Sohn shaking her head
in agreement at Scuratos testimony about the deals harms.

In other legal advisor moves, David Strickland, who has been assistant
bureau chief in the Enforcement Bureau, will serve as legal advisor, media, while Ethan Lucarelli will be legal advisor for wireless and international
and Ramesh Nagarajan will be legal advisor for wireline and enforcement.

[Visit Radio World’s News and Business Page]

The post Free Press Vet Carmen Scurato Joins FCC appeared first on Radio
World.


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Youth Mentorship Program Launched by Radio Club of America

Posted: 11 Jul 2022 10:52 AM PDT https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/youth-mentorship-program-launched-by-radio-club-of-america


The world’s oldest wireless society has launched a new mentorship
initiative to encourage youths to tap into wireless and STEM-related
careers.

The Radio Club of America Mentorship Program will provide opportunities for young professionals to learn from the experiences of more seasoned RCA
members. After completing an application to participate in the year-long program, interested members will be contacted by a mentorship committee and then matched with an appropriate mentor or mentee. 

A set of guidelines for both mentors and mentees include setting a series
of specific goals, defining expectations and honoring diversity, equity and inclusion in the program.

“RCA recognized that an important new value for our membership was to have our more experienced members provide help to members who were relatively
new to the wireless industry,” said John Facella, RCA president.

[Visit Radio World’s News and Business Page]

The organization has long focused on youth outreach. RCA’s 30-year-old
Youth Activities program is designed to interest middle and high school students in STEM subjects through the use of amateur radio. The organization’s college scholarship program works with those studying engineering and wireless-related disciplines. And the co-sponsored Young Professionals program works to support individuals under 30.  

The history of the Radio Club of America is a long one. On Jan. 2, 1909, a
few teenage radio experimenters came together, at the behest of local
inventor E. Lillian Todd, to host the first meeting of the Junior Wireless Club. Since then, the organization has worked to bring together
professionals from every segment of the wireless industry, including
broadband, broadcasting, microwave, public safety, transportation and
towers.

The post Youth Mentorship Program Launched by Radio Club of America
appeared first on Radio World.

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