RADIO WORLD – News | Radio-TV Industry News

Barry McLellan This is one in a series about trends in remote control and RF facility management. Barry McLellan is a site engineer for Bonneville International. He lives on Farnsworth Peak in Utah, where the company operates three FM stations and recently modernized the site’s master antenna infrastructure. Radio World: What do you consider the most important recent trend in how broadcasters control and monitor transmission facilities? Barry McLellan: When something goes wrong at the transmitter site, remote controls are the one device in a broadcast plant that can make or break your BBQ, vacation or just potentially let you get back to sleep for the slim remainder of the night. The old days were not so good. I’m sure we’ve experienced an overnight part-timer calling late at night from the studios, and you would need to explain how to get readings out of the Moseley MRC-1600 and maybe talk them through a complex process for turning on the aux transmitter in the hope you wouldn’t have to drive to a snowy mountain-top transmitter site at 2 a.m. A modern remote control at a transmitter site is crucial for monitoring, compliance and control. These systems have improved so much over early remotes that tied monitoring and alarming to a fixed control point. Along came improved remotes that used a POTs line or cellular connection to get the remote’s data to/from a remote transmitter site. Could anyone else, while almost completely asleep, answer the phone while practically asleep, enter the password, go through the alarm list, run the appropriate macro to get your station back on the air and fall right back to sleep? I was a DTMF master! These were a big improvement but had limits. The cellular link could be sketchy, it might not pass DTMF tones well, and we’ve all experienced the disappearance of POTs lines. The biggest improvement I’ve experienced with modern remote controls is the installation of solid IP connectivity at our sites. If a local IP provider is not available, sometimes this means a 5.8 GHz ISM link, a 900 MHz modem diplexed on your STL link, or possibly working with a WISP provider. The newer IP-based remote controls have so much information available on-screen at once, configured just the way you want these readings to appear. The connection can be left open all day on your work desktop or phone showing all your sites at… [TheTopNews] Read More.

Geoff Rich, a longtime radio executive who is credited with leading the “Dr. Laura” program, died Thursday night in Los Angeles. Rich was 69. He co-founded the firm Radio Today in 1986, according to his LinkedIn profile, which produced and distributed programs including Flashback, Rick Dees’ Weekly Top 40, Walter Cronkite’s Twentieth Century and Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s talk radio show. “I have lost my best friend, whom I spoke to every day for the last 30 years,” Schlessinger said in a release. ABC Radio purchased Radio Today in 1998, and Rich would become its executive VP of programming. In 2005, Rich would become president of the independent radio and podcast production company Take On The Day, which syndicated Schlessinger’s SiriusXM show and her podcast. Rich is survived by his wife, Koni, his children, Jaremy and Gabrielle, and his grandchildren. [Do you receive the Radio World SmartBrief newsletter each weekday morning? We invite you to sign up here.] The post Radio Exec Geoff Rich Dies appeared first on Radio World. [TheTopNews] Read More.

It is still difficult to qualify just how widely adopted AI voice use is across the radio industry. We have come across quite a few implementations for services such as weather forecasts, particularly in smaller markets. On the other end of the spectrum is iHeartMedia’s recent “guaranteed human” pledge.  A study from 2024 found that about one in five radio listeners think they’ve heard AI-generated content on the air. It’d be fascinating to see results today. That said, with it being three years since the first wave of radio adoption of synthetic voices began, would you be able to even tell the difference if you heard AI on the air? A recent study conducted by the University of Mississippi’s Jordan Center for Journalism Advocacy and Innovation inspired Radio World contributor and friend Dan Slentz to send us six underwriting announcements he produced for 105.9 WDOG(LP) in New Philadelphia, Ohio. Slentz serves as the station’s consultant. The rock-formatted community station airs four underwriting announcements per hour, from the hours of 6 a.m. through midnight. That could, if “The Rock Dog’s” inventory is filled, total a maximum of 72 spots per day. “Sometimes getting a different voice in the mix is difficult,” Slentz said. [Related: “What Happens When AI Shows Up on Your Station’s Social Media?”] So, to enhance the station’s narrators, he has experimented with low-cost or free AI voice resources. Most recently, Slentz has used the free AI voice generator offered by QuillBot, which advertises speech that sounds “natural, expressive and human-like.” Below are six different MP3s of WDOG underwriting announcements. Three are recorded by humans. The other three are from AI. Listen to them first, and then we’ll reveal their sources. Human or AI? Bear Carpet One Floor & Home in Sugarcreek, Ohio Berner Trucking in Dover, Ohio Better Banner Printing in New Philadelphia, Ohio Dover Flea Market in Dover, Ohio Dundee Marketplace in Dover, Ohio Michael’s Restaurant in New Philadelphia, Ohio Radio World’s performance Before we reveal the answers — as Professor Slentz, also an adjunct instructor at John Carroll University, informed me — yours truly would have failed this test if it were being graded on an academic scale. I had guessed that Berner Trucking, Better Banner and Dover Flea Market were AI. Just two of my six guesses were correct!  Answers revealed Human: 3, 4 and 6 AI: 1, 2 and 5 The… [TheTopNews] Read More.

A Sunday afternoon session at the upcoming NAB Show, moderated by Radio World Editor in Chief Paul McLane, makes the case that owning a radio station is a great fit for Gen-X and Millennial professionals. “People my age are looking for an opportunity to do something outstanding in their communities,” said Dr. Andy Gladding. “They’re investing in traditional small business, their buying farms, opening retail establishments and generally looking for an opportunity to succeed while having the power to have an impact at the community level and create lasting interpersonal business relationships.” As many tire of urban living and are looking for a change, this DMA is heading for more suburban and exurban locations. “For media professionals who are competent with and trained in major market workflows and understand how to market local business, radio can be a perfect for personal satisfaction and growth.” Gladding, a radio engineer with Salem Media Network and an educator at Hofstra University, acquired WKZE(FM) in Red Hook, N.Y. with his wife Katie. The session will explore the barriers to entry to station ownership, tips for creating community engagement and the importance of having guidance and mentoring from others. Gladding discusses the experience with fellow engineer and station owner Bud Williamson and Radio World’s Paul McLane. The session also will feature a presentation of the Radio World Excellence in Engineering Award to Andy Gladding. The talk will be given on Sunday afternoon April 19 at 3 p.m. in C2450, the TV and Radio HQ Theater on the Central Hall exhibit floor. [Read our profile of award winner Andy Gladding.] The post Radio — the New Boutique Business? appeared first on Radio World. [TheTopNews] Read More.

Jason Rieve in the Technical Operations Center. This is excerpted from the ebook “Sweet New Studios 2026.” Last September, 89.7 WUWM “Milwaukee’s NPR” set out to replace an older TDM-based system with a Telos AoIP infrastructure to serve four studios. It also wanted to rework its technical core to support those rooms and to improve redundancy in its air chain. WUWM was founded in 1964 and is licensed to the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents; it is operated by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee College of Letters and Science. Its studios are in Chase Tower in downtown Milwaukee, Wis. Studio Engineer Jason Rieve led the project for the station, with integration and system architecture by Summit Technology Group. “We needed to modernize and reduce our old systems to a more reliable system that can be more easily accessed remotely, allowing the freedom to work from anywhere,” Rieve said. The job included installing the Telos Axia StudioCore engine, Axia iQ consoles and Axia xNode2s. A view from behind the console in Studio A. WUWM opted to use its existing furniture, which was in excellent condition and had been customized to fit the rooms and workflows. Summit Technology Group’s AirLux Studio Signaling product mounted on a wall outside Studio B. Summit deployed its own AirLux Studio Signaling product, which takes cues from Axia Pathfinder to signal the on-air or recording status of each studio. New EV RE320 mics and studio monitors are mounted gracefully on Yellowtec Mika arms, providing a fresh and modern look. “The hard part was going to be how to completely remove ALL of our infrastructure and replace it, while still staying on air,” Rieve said. “I believe that was the biggest challenge. It was amazing how many boxes of wires were removed.” WUWM’s “Lake Effect” Studio console and under-table equipment rack. We asked whether WUWM is seeing the kind of studio trends we’ve noted elsewhere. “Yes,” Rieve said. “More and more our studios are used just for interviews. We no longer need to have tape decks, record players or DAT machines, since everything is online. Moving to an AoIP solution will allow us to be more fluid as things progress in our industry.” The work was done while staff and air personalities were actively occupying the space. It was also overlaid by an automation upgrade and hardware refresh, said Summit President Paul Stewart. A rackmounted monitor in… [TheTopNews] Read More.