| Georgia
media industry news & comment. |
Updated
8/14/18
Cumulus really, really wants back on the air.
 The
Cumulus/Gradick drama seems to be never ending after getting
no headway with the FCC trying to return the W255CJ (98.9)
translator back on the air in it's current form.
Cumulus has submitted
an application to reduce the power of the translator to
180watts from it's current 250w, along with a major null to
the west as to prevent any interference with Gradick's WWGA
(98.9) signal.
The new signal would
still cover in entire inside I-285 perimeter as well as
trample over (albeit slightly less) three LPFM signals
including WGRU-LP 99.1 in Riverdale, Ga preventing any of
those signals from being audible in more populated areas.
Stay tuned!
Herman Cain retires from
WSB Radio
The 2013
replacement of Neal Boortz; Herman Cain is leaving WSB Radio
on Friday (8/3) the 72 year old has seen his show cut back
from three hours down to just one after Cox Media decided to
give former Regular Guy Eric Von Haessler as weekday show.
Eric will now expand
into a full three hour show starting next week. Eric who's
political leanings are better matching of Neal's
Libertarianism than Cain's Conservative one.
Ratings for WSB AM/FM
have greatly improved since moving Eric to mid mornings
first doing a one hour show at 11am as a lead into Rush
Limbaugh to swapping with Herman back in the beginning of
the year from 9-11am.
Herman started doing a
local weekend show on WGKA 920 AM less than 10 years
ago before moving to WSB as a weeknight host. Herman left
radio to pursue a run for the white house before returning
to WSB Radio at the end of 2012.
Like Boortz Herman
will offer daily commentary for WSB AM/FM as well as doing a
daily podcast.
Cox Media Group to sell
all TV properties.
In a press
release sent out today (7/24) Cox Media is planning to spin
off all of it's TV properties while retaining it's radio and
newspapers for now.
In what some are
wrongfully calling a stunning announcement It's one that has
been a long time coming. As TV audiences continue to
decrease with streaming services taking more of the market
share.
Local over the air
(OTA) stations have been struggling to keep and retain their
audiences for quite sometime. This has also created the
perfect storm for conglomerates to take in most if not all
of the properties to at least make them profitable as a
whole.
Companies like Gray
Communications and Sinclair Broadcast Group are most likely
to benefit from the smaller companies like Cox Media, Raycom
and Tribune selling off their properties.
Its ironic that it was
exactly 20 years ago this year that radio was in the middle
of dealing with the same fate as Clear Channel was on a
buying spree for all small radio companies those who no
longer exists like AM/FM, Paxon, Chancellor, Jacor among
others.
Rumor also has it that
Cox plans to spin off all of its remaining radio and
newspapers in the coming years with some of its properties
interconnected like WSB-AM/TV in Atlanta and WDBO-FM/ WFTV-TV
Orlando/Daytona Beach.
It seems likely that
it will happen sooner rather than later. Look for a ton of
layoffs to take place both high profile and behind the
scenes. This is just the tip of the iceberg look for more of
these announcements in the near future. [Read
More]
Jamie Dupree returns to the radio, kind of.
For those who
have not followed this story it's one of horror for any one
of us who works in radio. Our voices are our money maker and
when someone loses theirs it's as devastating as it could
ever get.
That's just what
happened to Cox Media's Jamie Dupree, Washington reporter
for WSB-AM Atlanta as well as WOKV Jacksonville, WDBO
Orlando and others. Jamie through some freak unknown
situation lost his voice one day back in 2016.
Since then he has just
been recording audio from various congressmen and writing
blogs for Cox' various news radio sites. After hospital
hopping to no avail all was pretty much lost when it came to
his voice.
However a company
overseas that makes text to speech programs was able to use
the years of audio Jamie had recorded to create a 'brand new
voice' for him.
He calls it 'Jamie
2.0' think NOAA Weather radio but instead of a generic
Imperfect Paul voice it's Jamie's. He admits it's not perfect
shall we say Imperfect Jamie? However it gets him back on
the radio once again.
[Read More]
Cumulus/Gradick, $7,500 bribe and the Gun!
 The
Drama between Atlanta based Cumulus Media and west Georgia
based Gradick Communications seems to be hitting a boiling
point and the complaints reads like an old Sopranos script.
Cumulus is now asking
the FCC to reverse its April 11th decision to cease
operations of its translator for 99x due to the fact that
one of the complainants sold their house in December of
2017.
Cumulus also charges
that one of the complainants intimidated their representatives
with a visible gun in the front seat of his pickup truck.
"[complainant]
chose to remain in his truck with the engine running, put on
his sunglasses and pull his sun visor down, and make it as
difficult as he could for Cumulus’ representatives to
communicate with him regarding his alleged interference
problems.
At the same time,
unbeknownst to [Cumulus representatives], [complainant] had
his gun on the front seat next to him in his truck in case
the discussion with the Cumulus representatives did not go
to his liking"
Moreover Gradick
charged Cumulus with bribing one of its complainants with
whopping $7,500 to drop their complaint, $2,500 to drop the
complaint and $5,000 when the translator resumed
broadcasting.
Both companies are
accusing each other of unfairly soliciting listeners to
reach out to the FCC to add to their case Gradick added
screen shots of the 99x website telling listeners to email
the FCC and their support staff as a way to intimidate the
FCC board.
Click Here to read all of the complaints via FCC.
AM 1570 WIGO tower collapse.
The Urban
variety station AM 1570 WIGO "Atlanta's incredible radio"
has suffered a tower collapse knocking the stations AM
carrier off the air for the time being.
The WIGO tower located
behind the station studios on Old Rex Morrow Rd. collapsed
back on Thursday April 26th, 2018 unknown at the time of STA
filling why the tower collapsed.
The station has filled
with the FCC to remain silent as required until repairs can
be made to the tower to get WIGO-AM back on the air.
Click to enlarge!
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Trading Status:
Limited Trading
Rules
for traders:
1) I accept
airchecks in various forms; cassettes, VHS, CD/DVD
(Audio/Data) and MP3 (encoded at the highest bitrate
possible. (192k and higher)
Make sure if you are
using a computer to encode airchecks that there are no other
programs running in the background such as OS updates or
anti-virus apps or anything that uses a lot of RAM, as this
will lead to dropped bytes making the audio stutter or parts
of the audio missing.
Make sure you silence
your os' error sounds and if you can while encoding your
airchecks just leave your computer alone until it's done
this will ensure a clean rip of your recordings.
Also please don't add
your own custom jingles to the airchecks as they are
annoying and will always get removed or do too much to
manipulate the airchecks unless it's to correct the speed or
EQ.
The best way to encode
your airchecks to MP3 without a computer is to use a digital
recorder, I use the
CC-Witness and
Tascam DR-05 both are relatively cheap but work wonders
just be careful to keep good audio levels.
Pro-tip when using the
CC-Witness to record AM Radio use a passive AM loop antenna
like the one I have they mostly run under $30. Just rest
the CC inside the loop use the tuning knob on the antenna to
get the signal as clean as you can.
Also try to stay away
from anything electrical and for best pick up if you can
record outside away from buildings and electrical wiring in
the back yard.
2) If you request first you send your stuff out first.
I have been burned to many times, If you want to
know my record please don't be afraid to ask the people on
the Radio-insight Aircheck's web board.
3) All airchecks I
request should be unscoped.
4) 3 aircheck maximum will be allotted,
unless specified.
Note about longer
airchecks.
Some airchecks
are as long as 5 to 16 hours. These files are much to
large for me to upload.
So if you request those I will have to snail mail them
to you on a mp3 data disk. However I can chop
them down to a smaller size so I can upload them if you wish.
>How
To Start a Collection
I have
tons of scoped airchecks and bits and pieces of
radio station audio that just wasn't long enough to put into
my main collection so I have uploaded it all to a separate
page called Free Audio, also
showcasing current AM music radio stations.
Click Here
Auroral and Sporadic E Monitor
| Max
MUF Today: |
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| Auroral
DX: |
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| Es
in Europe: |
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in USA: |
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Click
Here for the TV Aircheck List and Tapeables from Atlanta's
DTV stations...!
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Deadbeat's List:
1) Alex Clarke (2018)
Note: Had never traded with him before
but gave him a chance in good faith I sent his
request to him but he never sent me mine, after
several follow ups and after he continuously
spammed my inbox with more request I had to
block him.
~Jason |
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