XPost: alt.radio.broadcasting

Radio World

///////////////////////////////////////////
SiriusXMs Pandora Stations Now Available in BMW Vehicles

Posted: 05 May 2022 02:15 PM PDT https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/programming-and-sales/siriusxms-pandora-stations-now-available-in-bmw-vehicles


BMW vehicles equipped with SiriusXM with 360L radios now offer Pandora Stations.

This new in-car feature from SiriusXM employs Pandora’s listener personalization technology and gives BMW owners the ability to customize
their own ad-free music channels in the car that will play more of what
they want to hear, according to a company press release.

SiriusXM with 360L is the latest iteration of the satellite companys next-generation infotainment system. The name 360L is intended to suggest a 360-degree listening experience, combining satellite and streaming content delivery.
For vehicles equipped with this feature, Pandora Stations can be accessed
by hitting the “Related” button while an artist is playing or by hitting “Search” to create a specific artist’s Pandora Station.

Sticking with Pandoras usual personalization functions, drivers and
passengers can give songs a thumbs up or thumbs down and skip songs to customize the channel to their listening preferences. Users can also save
the Pandora Station to their vehicle Presets or SiriusXM Favorites for easy access whenever they want to tune in.
“Pandora Stations on SiriusXM with 360L radios bring the in-vehicle audio entertainment experience to another level, said Sean Gibbons, SVP & GM, Automotive Engineering & Product for SiriusXM. “We’re especially pleased that MY21 BMW drivers can get access to this great feature right now, many
of whom are still enjoying their initial 12-month SiriusXM trial subscription.”
The SiriusXM Platinum Plan is included for one year with the purchase or
lease of any new SiriusXM-equipped BMW vehicle. Pandora Stations will be available in all MY2022 and later BMW models.

[Related: SiriusXM with 360L is an Impressive Dashboard Experience]

When it first debuted in 2019 in the Ram 1500 pickup with 12-inch Uconnect
4.0 system, SiriusXM with 360L delivered content from both the satellite
and through streaming via internet access through on-board modems. In
October 2020, the ability to create an artist channel through its
subsidiary Pandora was added to the 360L experience.
For more information, visit the SiriusXM website.

The post SiriusXMs Pandora Stations Now Available in BMW Vehicles appeared first on Radio World.


///////////////////////////////////////////
Deadline Set for New Geo-Targeting Comments

Posted: 05 May 2022 11:49 AM PDT https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/business-and-law/deadline-set-for-new-geo-targeting-comments


Comment deadlines have been set in the FCC’s latest call for input about geo-targeting using FM boosters.

As we reported last month, the FCC wants to know what the industry thinks
about recent trials conducted at stations in California and Mississippi.

In December of 2020 the commission opened a notice of proposed rulemaking
on a proposal from GeoBroadcast Solutions to modify the rules to allow geo-targeting in certain limited circumstances. It took comments and
replies last year. But now it wants input in response to the subsequent
test results filed by GBS.

(If it seems like this issue has been floating around for some time, you’re right. In fact 10 years ago this month the commission was taking public comments on the early iteration of the GBS proposal.)

These comments are due June 6, and replies are due June 21. Use the commission’s ECFS to file. Reference MB Dockets 20-401 and 17-105.

[Read the KSJO technical report.]

[Read the WRBJ technical report.]

The post Deadline Set for New Geo-Targeting Comments appeared first on
Radio World.


///////////////////////////////////////////
Nicole Ovadia Joins BIA Advisory Services

Posted: 05 May 2022 11:44 AM PDT https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/people-news/nicole-ovadia-joins-bia-advisory-services


BIA Advisory Services added three people to augment its forecasting and consulting divisions. 

“In a leadership role at BIA, Nicole Ovadia has joined as vice president of forecasting and analysis to focus on enhancing BIA’s U.S. local media advertising forecast models and to support strategic and financial
consulting projects with insights and analysis on broadcasting, digital
trends, and economic impacts,” it said.
Nicole Ovadia

Ovadia was director of the New York State Broadcasters Association for the
past year or so. Prior to that, she held several roles with Emmis Communications for more than 14 years, including in the corporate Strategy Group focusing on sales and acquisitions and, at the local level, in New
York as vice president customer success for the big Emmis stations in that market.

[Visit Radio World’s People News Page]

Ovadia has a B.S. degree in economics from Wharton and an MBA from MIT
Sloan. 

Also, Leyla Chatti joined as a senior media analyst. She was with Warner Brothers Digital in the business intelligence area analyzing and reporting audience insights to its leadership. She also has worked at Comscore. 

And Mark Dugan has been named director of data insights and client
relations. He was with Sinclair Broadcasting, where he was a research
director for WPGH(TV) in Pittsburgh. He also has also been an account
executive at Raycom Media and research director at Granite Broadcasting. 

The announcements were made by CEO and founder Tom Buono.

The post Nicole Ovadia Joins BIA Advisory Services appeared first on Radio World.


///////////////////////////////////////////
iHeart Continues to Dominate Podtrac Charts

Posted: 05 May 2022 11:01 AM PDT https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/programming-and-sales/iheart-continues-to-dominate-podtrac-charts


The first five names on Podtrac’s list of top podcasts held steady in
April, though there was movement farther down the list. 

Its April ranking of the top 20 podcasts based on U.S. unique monthly
audience appears in the chart at bottom of this story. The New York Times continues as No. 1 with “The Daily.”

“My Favorite Murder” from Exactly Right entered the list at No. 6. Podcast One’s “The Jordan Harbinger Show” jumped three slots. Slipping in the rankings include Fox News Radio’s Hourly Newscast, “CNN 5 Things” and NPR’s
“Fresh Air.”

iHeartRadio, NPR and Wondery lead the separate list of top podcast
publishers. Those three companies combined have a total of more than 850 shows. 

The average U.S. Unique Monthly Audience for the top 20 publishers was down
2% month-over-month but up 16% over April 2021. Total Global Downloads for
the group were down 5% month-over-month and up 31% year-over-year.

Podtrac said that iHeart alone had 441.5 million global streams and
downloads in April, with a U.S. unique monthly audience of almost 31.3
million. Still, both of those numbers were down a bit from the month before even as the company added to its number of shows.


The post iHeart Continues to Dominate Podtrac Charts appeared first on
Radio World.


///////////////////////////////////////////
Tim Casey Back With Calrec

Posted: 05 May 2022 10:55 AM PDT https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/people-news/tim-casey-back-with-calrec



Audio distributor Group One has hired Tim Casey as a Calrec customer
support technician in the United States.

“In 1996, Casey began a long career as a technical sales associate for
Studio Consultants Inc., which became the first U.S. distributor for Calrec
25 years ago,” Group One stated.

“Casey became a technical sales and support specialist and was relied upon
to highlight Calrec technology’s features and benefits.”

[Visit Radio World’s People News Page]

Casey noted in the announcement that he became a Calrec specialist at the
1996 Olympics in Atlanta and worked in that role for 22 years. He
subsequently studied networking and cyber-security at the University of
Miami. “The audio industry, and Calrec in particular, has really advanced with IP-based products.”

He earned certification from the University of Miami’s Cybersecurity
program, and has certifications in CompTIA Network+, Linux Essentials and
Cisco Systems NetAcad. 

The post Tim Casey Back With Calrec appeared first on Radio World.


///////////////////////////////////////////
NYPR Amps Up Its Dashboard Presence

Posted: 05 May 2022 10:29 AM PDT https://www.radioworld.com/columns-and-views/from-the-editor/nypr-amps-up-its-dashboard-presence


A version of this story appeared in the Radio World ebook “A Call to
Action: Radio’s Existential Battle for the Dash.”

New York Public Radio is building its digital future and working to assure
its relevance in connected cars. The multi-prong strategy includes
integration of Rapid software from Xperi’s All In Media division. 

The software allows stations to automatically collect or manually create
rich visual content and publish it on digital radio platforms, FM, online
and mobile.

NYPR owns two major FM stations in New York. They are news, talk and information flagship station WNYC and classical station WQXR. 
Steve Shultis

 “We know how visible and competitive the dashboard is, with rich graphics and data from Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, Sirius XM, TuneIn Radio,” Chief Technology Officer Steve Shultis said in late 2021.

“Human nature loves bling, it loves eye candy. So you’ve got to have a logo, you’ve got to have depth of metadata to grab the customer and hold
them there, just to be able to compete.”

The right Humperdinck

AIM and its founder Chris Gould have assisted NYPR to create public-facing metadata and visual displays, integrated with its HD Radio systems and the public radio system MetaPub.

When the work is complete, listeners to the two FM stations who have HD
Radios will see album art on the classical music station and other Artist Experience visuals on the news/talk station. 

The Rapid software is a sophisticated cloud-based metadata distribution
tool that acts as middleware, collecting information from the station
website, automation system or third-party provider. There are other
middleware systems, but this one has access to an unusual resource

“DTS now owns TiVo and Rapid as well as Xperi,” Shultis said. “So once you
sign the deal with them, you have access to all that metadata from TiVo, an incredible array of Artist Experience, metadata and album art. For us that
is especially desired on the classical side.”

Historically, he said, it has been difficult to align album art with
classical music content; WQXR experienced match rates as low as 30%. Those problems led the station to turn off its Artist Experience metadata until a better solution could be found. 

“There are so many versions of Beethoven’s Symphony Number 5. And there’s a
German classical composer called Engelbert Humperdinck — we knew things
were wrong when the audience was calling us saying, ‘Oh, you’ve got the lounge singer Engelbert Humperdinck performing today.’ That was
embarrassing. And because we couldn’t get the match rate we needed, we
pulled the plug.” 

[Subscribe to Radio World]

Shultis expects Rapid will solve such problems. 

“It also can be your single source of truth for your metadata, assuring
that you’re using correct, consistent taxonomy across different areas of
the radio station.” 

Rapid also is a scheduling tool.

“So if at 10 a.m. we air ‘The Brian Lehrer Show’ and at 12 p.m. we air the
show ‘All of It,’ both of which are live shows, Rapid can hold those schedules and switch the metadata at the appropriate time. The producers
can input specific metadata for their show as it’s happening or do it
prior. And then Rapid can push the metadata to the websites, the
transmitter sites and wherever else it’s going.”

Rapid will also be embedded into an extensive new Digital Asset Management system that will serve the entire NYPR enterprise.

“Among many things, it will provide hierarchical storage management, a
fancy term that just means if you haven’t touched a digital asset in 30
days or so, it will move it to lower-tier storage that might take a little longer to retrieve, although you will have compressed proxies available immediately” Shultis said.

This approach will eliminate silos that have developed within the company,
with various departments managing assets and metadata differently. The new
DAM will also help the organization better manage its massive historical
audio archive reaching back 85 years. 

“Rapid serves as the cohesive distribution arm of our metadata, so it will hook into this new digital asset management system.”
Conceptual inputs/outputs for Rapid.

In short, NYPR is moving from numerous back-end systems to fewer — with the focus on a main storage system and a main distribution system — partly in
an effort to present a more consistent face to listeners. 

Shultis cites the example of the program “RadioLab.” One episode may have four or more versions: the broadcast show, with breaks for underwriting; a podcast with breaks for different underwriting; a “members only” podcast that has no underwriting; and a streamed version. All have slightly
different metadata needs. 

“When a listener tunes in to a NY Public Radio station, whether it’s in the car or on a podcast, the logos will be the same; and now the metadata will
be standardized, with the ‘NY Public Radio look and feel.’”

Shultis also is a firm believer in “segment-level” metadata. 

“More is better. When a person tunes into the middle of an interview, they say, ‘Wow, this is a great interview, but who is it?’ So instead of just presenting ‘All Things Considered’ the display will say something like ‘All
Things Considered, an interview with Paul McLane.’ I would advise any engineer to go as deep as you can. The audience is hungry for that, and that’s what our competition is doing.”

Digital marketplace

New York Public Radio also supports DTS AutoStage as part of its digital strategy. 

Shultis was drawn to it by its service-following feature, in which a
receiver transitions from the OTA signal to the station stream if the
vehicle leaves the coverage area.

“We’re big on podcasting and streaming. We deliver over a petabyte of data per month of podcasts and streams of our programming. So when I heard about this idea through the NAB and Xperi, I was all over it,” he said.
The logo on the instrumentation panel of a car with DTS AutoStage.

“This is especially important for people in New York City, who may commute
an hour and a half by car from the suburbs, which can easily lay outside
the coverage area of a metropolitan station. Broadcasters have tried to do
this all along with single-frequency networks — to be able to fail over to your next repeater site to keep the listener engaged.”

Shultis looks forward to seeing more cars on the road with DTS AutoStage.
He is enthused about how WNYC and WQXR metadata show up on its display in a Mercedes S Class, an implementation that includes a useful carousel tuning
view and that also presents the station logo to the driver directly behind
the steering wheel as well as the center column screen. 
WNYC’s logo on the carousel tuning screen in a car with DTS AutoStage.

Overall, Shultis has been vocal to his station leadership about the
importance of managing their visual product.

“I just bought a basic-model Subaru. It’s got a beautiful, wide flatscreen with HD Radio in it. Older, analog radio cars are dying away, and the HD
Radio marketplace in the New York City DMA now has over 50% penetration of cars, so this is what we’re doing to compete in that marketplace.”

The post NYPR Amps Up Its Dashboard Presence appeared first on Radio World.


///////////////////////////////////////////
Steve Walker Joins Wheatstone

Posted: 04 May 2022 02:06 PM PDT https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/people-news/steve-walker-joins-wheatstone


Steve Walker has joined the technical support team of Wheatstone.

“Steve has a broadcast engineering and technical support background,” the manufacturer wrote. “Previously, he served 22 years in an engineering and
IT capacity for Radio One in Dallas, Texas, where the group operates two urban-formatted stations and Reach Media program syndication.”

Walker also contributes to Radio World. [Read: “What’s in Your Audio Library?”]

He is a member of the Society of Broadcast Engineers chapter in Dallas and graduated with a B.S. in computer science from The University of Texas. He
is based in Dallas.

Send news of management and technical hires, promotions and other job
changes to radioworld@futurenet.com. 

The post Steve Walker Joins Wheatstone appeared first on Radio World.


///////////////////////////////////////////
Cumulus Rejects Buyout Offer at Q1 Revenue Meeting

Posted: 04 May 2022 01:44 PM PDT https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/cumulus-rejects-buyout-offer-at-q1-revenue-meeting


Cumulus Media on Wednesday rejected that unsolicited bid from a group of private equity investors, led by Connoisseur Media CEO Jeff Warshaw, to buy
the broadcaster for $15-$17 per share, saying the offer undervalued the
media company. It instead announced a $50 million stock buyback plan. 

CEO Mary Berner said the broadcaster’s revenue levels are still lower than
in 2019, but the media company is trending in a positive direction.
Cumulus’ first quarter total revenue was up 15% led by digital growth of
18%. The results marked revenue improvement for the fifth straight quarter versus the comparable 2019 quarter.

The company recorded revenue of $232 million in the first three months of
2022. Breaking out the segments; broadcast radio totaled $103.9 million in revenue, which was up 12% from the previous year. Networks accounted for
$65.2 million in revenue and represented a smaller bump of only 5% growth
from Q1 of 2021. And digital recorded nearly $32 million in revenue in the
most recent quarter.    

“Our outstanding first quarter results once again demonstrate the positive impacts of our audio-first strategy to transform the company from a one-dimensional radio broadcaster to a multi-dimensional audio media company,” Berner said in a company press release.

The company recorded $30.1 million in what it deemed “other” revenue, part of which was a termination payment it received as the result of WynnBET
ending its partnership with the broadcaster during the first quarter,
Berner said.

Overall podcasting revenue grew more than 20% in Q1 year-over-year, Berner said. Additionally, Cumulus is seeing traction with the launch of its local podcasting effort. “Revenue in Q1 has doubled, and importantly, our local podcasts are now on a run rate of nearly 100 million annual downloads,” she said. 

[Visit Radio World’s News and Business Page]

Cumulus recorded a first quarter net loss of $0.9 million compared to a net loss of $21.9 million in Q1 of 2021, according to financial statements
released Wednesday.  

Supply chain shortages across the auto sector continue to affect the broadcaster, according to Cumulus Chief Financial Officer Frank
Lopez-Balboa. Auto advertising at Cumulus was down more than 25% in the
first quarter compared to a year ago and down 50% compared to the same
quarter in 2019.   

Lopez-Balboa said Cumulus’ second quarter revenue is currently pacing up in the mid-single digits versus Q2 of 2021. However, the broadcaster has seen
some slow down in national and network advertising early in the quarter, he said. “That could be in response to what the Fed might do and concerns
about economic weakness or recession. But the whole area of national and network, as we have seen in the past, can come back quickly or slow down dramatically,” Lopez-Balboa said on the investor relations call.

Berner added: “We are still feeling the effects of the pandemic and the up and down of COVID variants, particularly in major markets that have been tentative about return to work. But we are seeing encouraging data and improvements in our weekly cume, which is pacing better especially in
smaller markets. And we expect that to continue as the summer goes on and
as the country continues to settle down.”

Cumulus executives on Wednesday limited their discussion about the
rejections of the Jeff Warshaw-led buyout offer to buy the company. The
Cumulus Media board of directors said in a regulatory filing: “After a careful and thorough review, conducted in consultation with our financial
and legal advisors, the Board unanimously concluded that the indication of interest significantly undervalues the company and is not in the best
interests of its shareholders.” 

Cumulus generated $24.3 million of cash from operations and managed to pay
down $12.5 million of debt in the first quarter of 2022, but its total debt still stands at $793.4 million as of March 31, 2022.


Randy J. Stine has spent the past 40 years working in audio production and broadcast radio news. He joined Radio World in 1997 and covers new
technology and regulatory issues. He has a B.A. in journalism from Michigan State University.

The post Cumulus Rejects Buyout Offer at Q1 Revenue Meeting appeared first
on Radio World.


///////////////////////////////////////////
FCC Seeks Partners for WEA Testing

Posted: 04 May 2022 12:29 PM PDT https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/headlines/fcc-seeks-partners-for-wea-testing


This article isn’t about EAS, but radio folks who follow emergency alerting issues may find it of interest.

The Federal Communications Commission is asking for help with testing the effectiveness of Wireless Emergency Alerts.

Its Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau hopes to hear from alert originators who are willing to partner “to conduct localized, end-to-end
WEA performance tests in the third quarter of 2022.”

WEAs are short emergency messages from public alerting authorities that can
be broadcast from cell towers to any WEA‐enabled mobile device in a
targeted area.

“In 2021, PSHSB, with its testing partners and FEMA, conducted a survey in connection with the nationwide WEA test,” the bureau wrote. “Although WEA generally performed well in that test, PSHSB recognized a need for
localized testing to confirm WEAs performance under conditions that reflect WEAs actual use during emergencies.”

It said it will work with the alert originators to define test parameters
and the roles and responsibilities of test developers and participants. But it’s hoping to hear from testing partners that “represent the diverse environments where WEAs are sent (i.e., dense urban, urban, suburban and
rural areas).”

It pointed interested parties to its comment filing system and said they
should submit a filing before May 22 with “22-160” as the docket number for the proceeding.



The post FCC Seeks Partners for WEA Testing appeared first on Radio World.


///////////////////////////////////////////
DRM Is Part of the BBC World Service Story

Posted: 04 May 2022 11:38 AM PDT https://www.radioworld.com/tech-and-gear/digital-radio/drm-is-part-of-the-bbc-world-service-story

Encompass Digital Media’s Woofferton site in the United Kingdom beams BBC World Service content in shortwave DRM to Europe and beyond.

The author is chairman of the DRM Consortium. Her commentaries appear
regularly at radioworld.com.

Our old friend James Careless studiously ignores DRM once more in his well-researched, but to our minds incomplete article “BBC World Service
Turns 90” in the March 30 issue.

As an ex-BBC senior manager, I would like to complete the story now that
the hectic NAB Show is over.

Having lived through and experienced at close quarters the decision to
reduce the BBC shortwave about 20 years ago, I can confirm that the BBC
World Service decision to cut back on its shortwave footprint — especially in North America, where reliable, easy-to-receive daily broadcasts ceased — has generated much listener unhappiness over the years.

In hindsight, the decision was probably right, especially in view of the
many rebroadcasting deals with public FM and medium-wave stations in the
U.S. (and later other parts of the world like Africa and Europe) that would carry news and programs of interest to the wide public.

But BBC World Service in its long history never underestimated the great advantages of shortwave: wide coverage, excellent audio in some important
and populous key BBC markets (like Nigeria) and the anonymity of shortwave,
an essential attribute in countries with undemocratic regimes.

BBC World Service still enjoys today about 40 million listeners worldwide nowadays.
A tool for today

Shortwave listening received a boost recently when broadcasters rapidly reinstated shortwave broadcasts to provide information and support to dislocated people and those eager to access uncensored external information
in Ukraine and Russia.

The BBC World Service ended its shortwave broadcasts to Eastern Europe in
2008, but in 2022 after the banning of its popular Russian-language
websites and the persecution of journalists in Russia, the BBC quickly increased transmissions of the BBC World Service via shortwave radio to
four hours per day to ensure that people in affected parts of Russia and Ukraine can access its news service.

The U.K. government has just allocated an additional £4 million pounds
(€4.2 million) funding for the BBC World Service to provide such services.

Shortwave never disappeared in most of the world. However, in Europe, with
its dense population and excellent infrastructure, the technique is
considered power-hungry and unnecessary in times of peace and stability.

Even so, BBC World Service, as one of the developers and users of the only open, all-band digital broadcasting technology Digital Radio Mondiale
(DRM), is still broadcasting in DRM shortwave to Europe (for short times
daily) and is testing DRM from Cyprus, as we speak, though in medium-wave.

Dr. Simon Keens, sales and business development manager at Ampegon Power Electronics AG of Switzerland, a supplier of shortwave transmitters,
believes this perception of “tech from the past,” particularly shortwave, may have obscured the great advantages of modern shortwave.

“Since shortwave transmissions can propagate over intercontinental
distances, broadcasters with minimal infrastructure can be remote from a practically infinite number of receivers in undefined locations,” he said.

He also sees increased interest in shortwave and its digital potential: “Current shortwave transmitters are not limited to the distorted, crackly broadcasts of the past: All our transmitters are factory-fitted for Digital Radio Mondiale. DRM shortwave gives broadcasters the possibility to
broadcast crystal-clear FM quality stereo sound, and even deliver images
and videos simultaneously. This can provide enormous benefits when
broadcasting to displaced people or populations under censorship.”
Support for DRM

BBC World Service has been interested and supportive of the DRM standard
for over 20 years. It maintains shortwave transmissions from Middle East
and the UK or Africa using the services of Encompass Media Services. It has done the most complete and very successful DRM for FM trial in Edinburgh.
It has trialed DRM medium-wave form Cyprus and continues its daily DRM shortwave transmissions to Europe and Asia.

Within the DRM consortium, as one of its key members, and pursuing
separately its own strategy, the BBC World Service is also trying to
stimulate the thinking about how to make the advantages of digital radio
DRM (not only good audio, but also data with applications for distance
learning or emergency warning) available to parts of the world that need relatively simple, cheap, maybe solar-powered, receivers.

The solutions are within grasp and there are digital shortwave receivers available. Today, analog receivers are still plentiful, as are digital SDR solutions — the currently affordable phone and tablet dongles provide other ways of receiving shortwave in both analog and DRM. And technology already exists for affordable DRM receivers: Manufacturers are simply awaiting bulk orders.

After 90 years the BBC has proven its resilience and success by weaving the
new IP technologies with the simple and effective ones that have new
digital clothes and can offer so much more than analog at a fraction of the energy costs.

The post DRM Is Part of the BBC World Service Story appeared first on Radio World.


///////////////////////////////////////////
Hot Debate on Shortwave Revival Continues

Posted: 04 May 2022 11:18 AM PDT https://www.radioworld.com/columns-and-views/hot-debate-on-shortwave-revival-continues


Does it make sense to resume shortwave (SW) radio broadcasts to Russia and Ukraine, decades after international SW broadcasters cut back their
services and people turned to the internet for information? Or does
Russia’s blocking of online western news sources for its citizens, plus the millions of Ukrainian refugees lacking such access as they flee the war
zone and millions more living in place without power and internet, make SW radio a viable option?

The first position was recently argued in our recent guest commentary, “Why Reviving Shortwave is a Non-Starter”, which was written by SW broadcast veterans Keith Perron and Daniel Robinson. The second case was advanced in rebuttal by RW readers in a succeeding posting, “‘Why Reviving Shortwave is a Non-Starter’ Sure Got Our Readers Started!”.

It is worth noting that both sides of this debate advocate providing Russia
and Ukraine with better access to Western news and views. What’s at issue
is the best way to do it.

Anyway, more detailed commentaries arguing for and against SW broadcasts to Russia and Ukraine have since been received by Radio World.

The Commenters
Gerhard Straub

Arguing for SW broadcasts to Eastern Europe are Gerhard Straub and Kate Neiswender.

Before becoming managing member of The Chalaco Group, LLC, Straub was
director of the Broadcast Technologies Division in the Office of
Technology, Services and Innovation at the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM). It is the US government agency that owns and operates the
Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Radio Marti, among others. 

Neiswender is the “point person” for Shortwaves for Freedom, a volunteer-led, crowdfunded group that is using shortwave to transmit
English and Russian language Voice of America news into Eastern Europe and Russia. “People need the information that is being transmitted, and
shortwave is one way to get there,” she said. (Note: Her organization is a pro bono Chalico Group client.)

Meanwhile, Paul Thurst stands with Perron and Robinson in seeing SW as a ‘non-starter’ in Eastern Europe. Thurst is Principal/Owner at Data Wave, LLC, a technical services provider in New York State’s Hudson Valley. 

“Since I am still in contact with persons currently in Russia, I figured I would attempt to reach out and ask them what they thought about it (without putting them at risk, of course),” Thurst writes. “The short answer; the opinion by Daniel Robinson and Keith Perron is correct. Shortwave is a non-starter in Russia.”

[Read More Guest Commentaries Here]
Paul Thurst

Wrong from the Get-Go?

Straub and Neiswender mince no words in their objections to Perron and Robinson’s commentary. “The title and focus of the recent opinion piece, ‘Why Reviving Shortwave is a Non-Starter’ is confusing, because it is hard to revive something that is not dead,” Straub declares. “In fact, USAGM is

[continued in next message]

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)