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Notes from all over: what's happening in
broadcasting...
Older news and events
AUGUST
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8/28/10 -
KCBQ and staff were honored with a monument and plaque at the
former transmitter site in Santee, California. In addition to
many who worked at KCBQ
over the years, the mayor of Santee appeared to show his and the
city's support, as well.
The San Diego market
station, which had pulled as much as a 60 share in the "Golden Days"
of rock and roll between 1958 and 1978, has long since been sold,
changed formats, and moved to another location (the old site now hosts
a shopping center, the five-foot-plus monument is located alongside
the road by the Kohl's and Lowe's stores).
The ceremony,
orchestrated at 11:70 AM (12:10 PM), was a flashback to one of the
station's efforts to brand the 1170 dial position into the minds of
listeners. The monument contains a
picture of the station
in its glory days, as well as a
listing of the staffers
over the years.
Although the Internet contains "tribute sites" for many radio
stations that no longer are around it is unusual for cities and
politicians to permit the installation of a monument like this one.
Yet, for many who worked there or listened to the station, the sounds
are still fresh in their heads.
The 300-400 people who showed up to see the monument unveiled on the
site of the former monster station's facility demonstrated the strong
and long-lasting bond that is created with listeners by a radio
station that reaches into the community to touch people's lives.
(PS... yes, we know we spelled it wrong on the Newsletter. Please
repeat this one after me: K - C - B -
Q!)
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8/25/10 -The
FCC has released news of a couple of fines this week that, if nothing
else, offer a few things for stations and engineers to put on their
list to "check" for compliance.
For example, a station in ... was cited for
not monitoring the proper
stations for EAS purposes. KCRU had apparently changed from the
assigned stations, but never checked with the state and local
coordinating committees. In another case, a contest was ruled bad
because the station, WWEG(FM) had picked a
winner before the stated end
of the contest - and sure enough, a listener showed up and
after not being allowed to enter the contest, filed a compaint with
the FCC.
The upshot: a $4000 fine. Finally,
WWWK pulled an $8500 fine for
not having the Main Studio
manned during business hours and EAS gear that did not work.
By the way, did you know the radio license renewal cycle starts
again next year. Time now to double and triple check station records,
the Public File, etc., so there are no "surprises" as you go through
the renewal process (VA, WV, MD and DC get first try in June!). The
FCC reports Public File issues
continue to be the biggest problems, especially the quarterly Issues
and Programs listing.
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8/19/10 -
Jerry Campbell was apparently electrocuted while working on a
transmitter in Greenville, MS. According to reports,
Campbell,
73, of Oxford, MS died around noon while working at repairing the
WDMS transmitter that had failed earlier in the morning.
It was reported that Campbell was not alone nor tired. According to
a report from another engineer, he had taken a break to think about
the problem and apparently got "out of sync" with the transmitter's
energized condition. Returning to the problem, he apparently reached
to a component that was "hot" and suffered the fatal shock.
Lesson: Even when you have someone on hand, think twice about whether
or not there is high voltage BEFORE you extend your hand (the other
one is in your pocket, right?)
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8/16/10 -
KRKO is in the midst of recovering from vandalism. They
have restored their "missing" two towers
(picture), knocked down in the middle of the night. (The
Story here)
This has been a long, exhausting fight for the station. As with the
"birds issue" certain groups have used the courts to make things very
difficult for what is essentially a small business. Given the
vandalism problems in recent years, stations like KRKO and
WCSZ have a real hard time. Fortunately, KRKO was able to
stay on the air throughout, but WCSZ was not. Nevertheless, with or without
insurance, these are costly affairs.
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8/12/10 -
On this date in 1960, 50 years ago,
Echo 1 was launched.
The first two-way, live communications satellite made its way up
to 1000 miles above the Earth and the opened the era of truly global
communication.
The 100 foot giant metallic balloon - or "satelloon" - was the means
for the first voice communication by satellite, as well as the first
coast-to-coast phone call by satellite.
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8/12/10 -
George Marti was honored by the Texas Association of
Broadcasters with their
Lifetime Achievement Award.
Although perhaps not the first to explore the technology, George
Marti made it accessible to virtually any station, turning the Remote
Pickup Transmitter (RPU) into such a common item that most people
simply call them "Martis" ... as in "Take one of the Martis out to the
big remote at 2PM." Marti also practiced "giving back" to the
community.
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8/9/10 -
The BDR
celebrates its First Anniversary! ...
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8/6/10 -
Orban processors will continue to be manufactured by the
company now based in Arizona. CRL, Inc was put up for sale earlier
this year, but now a financial agreement with Bob Orban has apparently
kept the majority owners, the Brentlinger family, in place.
The company has suffered along with many during the current economic
slowdown and the woes of the large consolidators. It was about ten
years ago that it combined Ron Jones' Circuit Research Labs and Bob
Orban's eponymous company, acquiring the latter from Harmon
International. Since then it acquired Autogram, a console
manufacturer. The company hopes this new arrangement will strengthen
the the company and allow it to continue selling it popular processors
to the radio and television industries, both in the U.S. and abroad.
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8/5/10 -
WWVA,made it back up by 10:30PM with 5
kW into a 50-foot tower stub of the East tower and some wire strung
between the East and Central towers. (For those who desire to know
such things, this led to an input Z of 5 -j25 Ohms.)
A video "tour" of the downed towers is
here. More pictures
of the destruction are
here. Sadly, they were on the last two days of a complete
repainting - talk about timing...
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8/4/10 -
WWVA, Wheeling, WV was knocked off the
air when all three of its towers were all
knocked down in a storm, leaving nothing available to use as an
emergency tower for a non-directional signal.
Engineers for the 50 kW Clear Channel station were hoping to get at
least a temporary signal back on the air by tomorrow (Thursday)
afternoon. Complicating matters: initial site access was blocked by
trees that were blown down.
A TV report can be found
here.
JUNE
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7/27/10 -
Univision Radio pays a $1 million fine
and agrees to stop "pay for play" with piles of cash bribes being sent
around to get certain records played.
The FCC had charged that
Univision Services and Univision Radio were involved in a
"conspiracy" to commit mail fraud, the result of the
payments for airplay.
Univision Services pled guilty in Federal Court in CA, while Univision
Radio admitted to the FCC that several of their PDs got money.
It's funny how payola keeps popping back up in the industry, over
and over. On the other hand, with more automation and fewer live
personalities, some of the big companies apparently figure a few
well-placed packets of money is an easy way to influence playlists.
This may be one time the Enforcement Bureau got it right.
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7/26/10 -
The Library of Congress, which oversees copyright laws,
ruled that Apple cannot
prevent iPhone users from
"jailbreaking" their
iPhones - in other words, adding software and applications that Apple
has not provided nor approved.
While only about 8% of iPhone users try to open up their iPhones to
outside software, according to some estimates, there are a significant
number of programmers unhappy with Apple's total control of what users
can install. They hope to be able to make some serious money from
dissatisfied Apple users. Apple, for its part, insists users who do
not jailbreak get better, less trouble-free operation with their
phones.
This could be a significant crack in the Apple "closed system" of
products and software. On the other hand, many people are quite
willing to pay a premium to Apple's iStore to ensure they get quality
software that works as advertised.
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7/21/10 -
KNIM-AM/FM, Maryville, MO was knocked off the air this past
weekend due to a storm. The storm snapped their 70-foot STL tower
around 3AM.
Using a backup tower just recently built, the FM was able to get back
up, but the loss of the STL signal kept the AM silent until a link
could be set up.
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7/21/10 -
A reader brought to our attention a Bill
slowly working its way through Congress that may be worth your
attention, too.
H.R. 2067 (and
companion S. 1580) are called the
"Protecting America's Workers Act" Among other
things, it is designed to expand OSHA to all government employees. The
Act also provides protections for whistleblowers. But the part that
the reader mention to us as most worrying was wording that assumes
"that company managers discourage a safe working environment, that
managers are always opposed to any reports of worker injuries or
unsafe conditions, that managers have to be told that they can't
punish workers who participate in safety inspections, etc, etc, etc"
In other words, OSHA will be pressuring workers to file complaints so
they can issue citations.
How this might affect broadcasters is as yet unknown, but given
the fixation of some bureaucrats with RFR and other workplace hazards
- including noise levels - you may wish to be familiar with the
legislation.
Our correspondent writes: "I see this legislation as a measure
that fosters an "us versus them" mentality in the workplace and
creates a bigger OSHA bureaucracy where none is needed. ... Our
broadcasters are not sweatshops in Bangkok and we're not the Triangle
Dress Factory but it seems like the government thinks so."
As with much legislation, this may just languish and die in this
Congress. But there are some implications here of which broadcasters
should be aware, so they are not taken by surprise if this Bill starts
moving. (The last recent action was in late April.)
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7/21/10 -
Dell Computers has announced that malware was found on some of
its server motherboards. The
PowerEdge R410 (and R310 and
R510 and T410) Rack server
apparently has spyware embedded. More
information here.
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7/19/10 -
The FCC has published its Public Notice
to begin an inquiry into data
collection and use. The Docket Number is 10-103.
Using three Public Notices, the FCC has indicated they want to "... improve the way the Commission
collects, uses and disseminates data," so that they can "eliminate
unnecessary data collection while ensuring that the FCC has the
information needed for sound analysis and policy making."
Broadcasters are invited to
read the Public Notice and comment between now and August 13th.
The individual bureau notices (and a spreadsheet of the data under
review at the Media Bureau) are
available here.
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7/13/10 -
A three-judge panel from the
US Second Court of Appeals
ruled against the FCC in New York today calling the FCC's
indecency policies "unconstitutionally vague, creating a chilling
effect that goes far beyond the fleeting expletives at issue here."
The challenge came from the major broadcast networks, who claimed the
"no-tolerance" enforcement of one-time or so-called "fleeting"
expletives was unfair and violated their rights under the First
Amendment.
The FCC's
viewpoint is here.
While any number of college station announcers were "cheering" the
ability to say anything on the air, the reality is not quite so much
that the barn door is now open, as that the FCC will be forced to take
another look at the issue of how and what content they can regulate.
Look for this one to generate a lot of noise, heat, and lawyers'
fees. And, yes, Congress will likely be highly visible in the process.
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7/12/10 -
Perhaps bowing to the marketplace - and
the large number of users that bought Vista computers and downgraded
to XP, Microsoft has announced that their
support for downgrading Vista
or Windows 7 to XP Pro has been extended until 2020.
Users - and new sales of XP Pro will end in October 2010 - will need
to update to the XP Service Pack 3, but it would appear that security
and other patches will continue to be available for quite a while to
come - making Windows XP one of the longest-lived versions of the
operating system.
Some more information that may help clarify things can be
found here. Another article
is here.
To find out what Service Pack you should have,
try this link.
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7/9/10 -
The inventor of the Audimax and Volumax,
among other technology,
Emil Torick, passed
away on June 19th. The former CBS Labs head was 78.
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7/8/10 -
National Public Radio has decided to
change its name to just NPR.
In jettisoning the full name it has used since the 1971 start, NPR
quietly has
affirmed a change that has been underway for some time now -
taking its news, information, and music programs to other platforms,
including the Internet.
NPR's head, Vivian Schiller calls it making NPR "more modern and
streamlined." Last month, Schiller told an audience that
broadcast listenership was going to be replaced by Internet delivered
radio in the next five to ten years, and that NPR wanted to position
itself now to take advantage of the coming changes.
Not all affiliates of NPR - which supply something like $62 million of
the NPR's $154 million budget - are happy with the national
organization using their money to bypass broadcasters.
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7/5/10 -
The well-known engineering firm Hammett
and Edison has been acquired by Pacific Venture Investments, led by
CEO Gary Lawrence.
The firm, founded in 1952, will continue to operate under the name Hammett and Edison.
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