I’ve updated the Enforcement Action Database this week, due to some news out of the FCC regarding its enforcement efforts against unlicensed broadcasting, all of which show little change to the wimpish status quo.
The agency tells Radio World that its plan to close 11 field offices will commence in January of next year. More than 40 field-agent positions will be cut, leaving just 13 offices remaining across the country, with a combined staff of three dozen. These will be backstopped by two “Tiger Teams” staged in Colorado and Maryland, to be dispatched to areas where an “interference crisis” exists within 24 hours.
However, what will those boots on the ground actually do when they get there? If the enforcement protocol itself does not change, the answer will be very little. Once need only look at the three most recent Notices of Apparent Liability issued by the Enforcement Bureau against pirate broadcasters in the last few weeks: touted mightily by the industry trades, a closer look shows a curious pattern of disengagement. Continue reading “FCC Enforcement: Anti-Pirate "Muscle" Now Slower than Molasses”
Month: August 2016
Fiscal "Threat" Posed By NY Pirates Belied By Broadcasters' Own Data
As a part of the campaign now underway to bring the (nonexistent) hammer down on unlicensed broadcasting in the New York metropolitan area, licensed broadcasters are alleging a variety of “harms” caused by pirate stations. Many of them are vastly overblown, such as the threat of interference they pose to a variety of communications networks, dangers from uncontrolled radiation — and, in the newest charge, economic hardships they cause to licensed stations.
The contention that pirate radio stations infringe on the radio industry’s right to make mad profits was first floated in an April 2015 blog post by Republican FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly; he claimed unlicensed broadcasting “causes unacceptable economic harm to legitimate and licensed American broadcasters by stealing listeners.” Continue reading “Fiscal "Threat" Posed By NY Pirates Belied By Broadcasters' Own Data”
HD Radio Makes "Progress," But Analog Still Rules
Earlier this summer Radio World published one of its occasional special “e-books,” this one called “HD Radio From the Ground Up” (form-filling required to download). Like most industry trade publications, it’s a celebratory document that seeks to paint the U.S. digital broadcast system in the best possible light.
Kicking things off is a tech-centric column from Scott Fybush in which he talks with various enginerring principals about the efficiency of today’s FM-HD Radio systems. Unlike the first few generations of the tech, which involved wildly inefficient combination of the analog and digital signals, improvements to the HD system now make for a better marriage. In HD’s early years, more than 30 percent of the power that went into the analog/digital combination process was lost as waste heat; now that number is down to something like 10 percent. Continue reading “HD Radio Makes "Progress," But Analog Still Rules”
iHeartMedia's Thin Skin on Corporate Finances
A funny thing happened just hours after I posted last week’s update on iHeartMedia’s dance with bankruptcy earlier this year: I got an e-mail from a PR flack contesting my analysis. But it wasn’t just any flack — it was Wendy Goldberg, iHeart’s chief communications officer. She was displeased with several points I made.
To begin, Goldberg asserted that I had misconstrued the timeline of events surrounding the company’s near-default. Instead, iHeart conducted a pre-emptive strike against “a small group of lenders” who planned to call in some $6 billion of the company’s $20+ billion outstanding debt burden within 60 days. (This would indeed have immediately tipped the company into default.) Secondly, my she called my assertion that this close call, in my words, worried “the market that the conglomerate is just steps away from bankruptcy” was seemingly, in her words, “confused at best, and speculation at worst.”
Finally, Goldberg took umbrage with my contention that iHeartMedia remains near the precipice: “I am assuming this is your own opinion or speculation, and if so you should either couch it as such or remove it.” Continue reading “iHeartMedia's Thin Skin on Corporate Finances”
iHeartMedia Seeks Pounds of Flesh for Bankruptcy Pressure
After fending off one legal challenge that would’ve sent the company into default, the nation’s largest radio conglomerate now seeks a spot of revenge.
iHeartMedia is heading back to a Texas courtroom in hopes of getting mega-damages out of a consortium of investors who went after the company, serving a notice of default for playing fast and loose with its $20+ billion worth of debt — a strategy which involves iHeart setting up shell companies to repurchase some of the debt it already owes at lower interest rates, while also working to shield some assets from potential creditors. The conglomerate filed suit to stop the default process, and the Bexar County judge sided with iHeart in May. Continue reading “iHeartMedia Seeks Pounds of Flesh for Bankruptcy Pressure”