http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl? http://www.eblah.com en http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1354201655/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1354201655/#num1 CRTC to Rogers: Turn down the ad volume Add to ...


A Rogers Communications Inc. office tower is seen in downtown Montreal
(Shaun Best /REUTERS)

By Steve Ladurantay

Wednesday, Nov. 28 2012

Canada’s broadcast regulator is asking Rogers Communications to explain – quietly – why it keeps blasting high-volume commercials on its stations despite new rules that insist levels remain consistent throughout a broadcast.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission sent a letter to the cable and broadcasting giant, saying it first received complaints about loud commercials after a football game was aired on CityTV Sept. 9.

he commission said Wednesday that Rogers agreed to solve the problem after it was told about the issues with the football game, which it blamed on “human and technology issues.” But the commission’s letter to Rogers noted that it continues to receive complaints about loud commercials on Rogers-owned television stations.

“Despite these assurances regarding the above complaints, the CRTC is now in receipt of new complaints about Rogers Media regarding similar loudness issues,” the commission wrote. “As such, it will be necessary for Rogers Media to confirm that it is in compliance with its regulatory obligations.”

To do that, the commission is asking Rogers to submit its new procedures, describe what it’s doing to ensure staff get things right and provide a list of any technological updates it will do to ensure its equipment keeps volumes even throughout a broadcast.

The commission introduced rules in September that forbid loud commercials, after a public-consultation process led to an astounding 7,000 submissions from viewers frustrated by ridiculously loud commercials filling their homes every time their favourite shows took a break.

“This has been a perennial issue. People have been complaining to us… we said it’s time to do something,” former CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein said when the changes were announced. “There’s no reason why the industry can’t do it. The costs are minimal. The technology is there.”

When the rules were being discussed, Rogers wrote in a submission that it “does not believe regulatory changes are required in order to ensure the effective control of the loudness of commercial messages relative to adjacent programming.”

Rogers had no comment.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/crtc-to-rogers-turn-down-the-ad-volume/article5758100/


.]]> Thu, 29 Nov 2012 07:07:35 Airwaves http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1328901035/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1328901035/#num1 Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:10:35 agro http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1320804885/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1320804885/#num1 Puget Sound Radio Congratulates Howard and Ingrid Christensen of Broadcast Dialogue, recipents of WABE 'Ambassador' Award

Broadcast Dialogue Wins Prestigious Ambassador Award from the Western Association of Broadcast Engineers (WABE)



Edmonton - Howard and Ingrid Christensen, the husband and wife pair who own Broadcast Dialogue, were presented with the WABE Ambassador's Award during the 61st annual convention of the Western Association of Broadcast Engineers which was held in Edmonton the last three days..

Cited were the couple's dedication to Canada's broadcast engineering community, Broadcast Dialogue's consistent high quality and its importance to the Canadian broadcast industry as a whole.

This is the seventh such honour from industry associations.

Broadcast Dialogue has also been presented with similar awards from the Central Canada Broadcasters Association (OAB), the Atlantic Association of Broadcasters (AAB), the British Columbia Association of Broadcasters BCAB), the Western Association of Broadcasters (WAB), the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) and the Central Canada Broadcast Engineers (CCBE).

http://www.broadcastdialogue.com/


.]]> Tue, 8 Nov 2011 18:14:45 Voice Over http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1268767645/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1268767645/#num1 Turns out Bill Virgin, longtime radio columnist with the defunct print edition of the Seattle PI, has surfaced again as a weekly business columnist with the Tacoma News Tribune.
Reviewing his recent Sunday submissions, only one is broadcast-oriented .. and that is regarding Internet-based Television.  We reproduce it here, and say one more time, thanks to Bill for his many years of radio columns.

Web creates a new drama for television
Bill Virgin
TACOMA NEWS TRIBUNE
Published: 12/13/09 7:48 am

The college football fan who was without cable service during the most recent season need not have despaired of being limited to whatever games the broadcast networks might throw at his rabbit-ears-equipped television set.

Armed with no more than a high-speed Internet service, a computer and access to the Web site ESPN360.com, that fan could choose from a slate of more than a dozen games on any Saturday, sometimes with a half-dozen or so airing simultaneously.

Commercial break on one? Flip over to another game to see how it’s going.

Missed the game live? Watch the full thing on replay – or if you only want the good stuff, watch just the key or scoring plays.

It’s a wonderful playground for the sports fan, but as one is toggling from one game to another some potentially troubling thoughts begin to emerge.

Not troubling to the viewer, mind you, who is happily lapping up this buffet of pigskin offerings, but potentially troubling to both cable companies and Internet service providers.

After all, the football fan who is consuming sports programming this way is not paying the cable company, which is paying to carry programming from networks now offering that programming through their own delivery channels via the Web.

But he is chewing up a lot of bandwidth to stream real-time video to his computer, far more than he would if he were sending e-mails or placing on order with an online catalog retailer, even though those customers are paying the same amount for different levels of usage. That’s bandwidth capacity the Internet provider will have to pay to install and operate as more consumers turn to online video.

And they will, including those who have not the slightest interest in sports. They already are. Miss this week’s episode of “CSI”? You can find episodes of that show and dozens of other current and past series on CBS’ own web site. Or you can watch shows from multiple networks on Hulu. Or you can watch movies online from Netflix, instead of waiting for them to be delivered by mail. Or you can go searching for obscure or odd video clips on YouTube.

So are the cable companies and Internet service providers and outfits that do both, like Comcast or Tacoma’s municipally owned Click Network, in a panic over changes in the way we watch TV?

As with so much else in life, the answer is a lot more complicated than a one-word, or one-column, response.

Mitch Robinson, Click Cable’s marketing and business operations manager, says online viewing is going up – but that’s not necessarily at the expense of traditional TV viewing. What appears to be happening is that people are adding viewing hours to their day, watching online at times of day when people don’t normally watch television anyway, such as at work. One example from this past week: A spike of daytime traffic on the system as people watched the memorial procession and service for the slain Lakewood police officers.

And while programming companies are finding new channels to deliver their content, they’re not looking to cannibalize the ones they’ve already got – like cable. “They want to protect a variety of revenue streams,” Robinson says. “They want any revenue stream they can get but they don’t want to get rid of any revenue stream either.” Cable services provide a reliable stream of revenue, which those programmers might not get if they relied solely on marketing directly to consumers.

Nor are system operators fretting that increased online video viewing will snarl their networks to a standstill. Comcast spokesman Steve Kipp notes that because of technologies such as buffering, online video is “not as huge a drain as you would think” on capacity.

Both Comcast and Click have monthly caps on customer download volumes (250 gigabytes). Says Robinson, “99 percent of customers couldn’t get close to the cap if they tried.”

But change is occurring, and industry players – from programmers to cable and Internet system operators – are trying to figure out how to get ahead of those changes. One strategy is to focus more on what’s carried over the system, using those offerings to attract customers. That’s why Click makes a point of emphasizing its local programming. That’s why Comcast offers access to ESPN360 for its high-speed Internet subscribers, and it’s why Comcast recently signed a huge deal to acquire a majority stake in NBC Universal.

All of this may not mean much at first blush to the consumer who wants an hour or two of televised diversion in the evening and has come to expect near infinite choices in that diversion as a birthright.

But TV has already been radically changed from the not-so-long-ago days when the choice was three over-the-air broadcast channels, take it or leave it. The viewing public has proven itself quite adaptable to the new TV technologies over the last three decades.

Given the possibility of technologies, programming choices and delivery options we haven’t even imagined yet, there’s going to be at least as much drama going on behind the screen as what’s appearing on it.

Bill Virgin’s column on business and economics appears Sunday in The News Tribune. He is editor and publisher of Washington Manufacturing Alert and Pacific Northwest Rail News. He can be reached at bill.virgin@yahoo.com ]]> Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:27:25 mikedup http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1236833908/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1236833908/#num1 On Radio: Community stations seek donations
By BILL VIRGIN
SEATTLE P-I REPORTER
March 12

The economy is in the tank, the headlines are filled with news about layoffs -- now would be a great time to go ask people for money.

But that's what public, community and noncommercial stations typically do each spring and fall, asking existing contributors to renew their memberships and hoping to land some new donors to replace those who have fallen away and maybe even increase the base of listeners willing to pay for the stations they hear.

Those pledge drives, and the success rate in meeting goals, are always important for those stations. This year, with tremendous pressure on other forms of support including corporate underwriting, they're crucial.

"For a lot of stations this is a make-or-break year," says Bruce Wirth, general manager of Everett-based community station KSER-FM/90.7.

KSER is hoping to raise close to $48,000 in its spring drive. Out of an annual budget of $375,000 the station raises $120,000 from listeners.

KBCS-FM/91.3, based at Bellevue Community College, hopes to raise $177,000 in a drive that begins March 19, says general manager Steve Ramsey. That amount, he adds, "is ambitious for us," but would allow KBCS to meet its fiscal year budget target. The station has an overall budget of $670,000, of which $500,000 comes from listeners.

KSER does have a transmitter tower that it rents out, generating enough income to support a third of its annual operating budget. That allows KSER to use listener donations for programming costs. Stations like KSER and KBCS also rely on such sources as fundraising concerts, employer matches of listener donations and underwriting by business contributors.

But that still leaves a lot of the budget riding on what listeners come up with.

"If someone smarter than me could come up with a way of fundraising that's better, they would have done it years ago," Ramsey says. Its drawbacks notwithstanding, "It's really the most direct way to support this kind of media," he says. "It will be an ongoing challenge for stations."

The challenge is acute this year with many businesses cutting back spending on advertising, marketing and contributions, which would include support for community radio. Wirth said he has projected a 10 percent drop in business support this year.

But the response to a mailing to existing members in advance of the spring drive has been "OK," he says. Ramsey has heard anecdotal evidence from other community radio stations that have "done really well" in their recent pledge drives.

"I don't know," Wirth says about prospects for this year. "I'll just go in and hope for the best."

Adds Ramsey, "Even in good times I'm nervous about fundraising."

In other radio notes:

*KIRO-AM/710 has announced the weekday programming lineup for its all-sports format, which it plans to launch next month. It will feature ESPN's "Mike and Mike in the Morning" 3-7 a.m.; another ESPN show, "The Herd with Colin Cowherd" 7-11 a.m.; a local show hosted by former University of Washington and NFL quarterback Brock Huard, teamed with former ESPN host and reporter Mike Salk, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.; former Sonics play-by-play voice Kevin Calabro 3-6 p.m.; and Mariners pre-game and game broadcasts, or ESPN's "GameNight," 6 p.m.-midnight.

*Bob Rivers, heard mornings on KZOK-FM/102.5, confirms that producer Mike Jones is no longer with the show for budget reasons. "He is a true pro, and his work for nearly a decade was impeccable," Rivers says via e-mail.

*Attorney General Rob McKenna takes listener calls at 9 a.m. Thursday on "Weekday" on KUOW-FM/94.9.

*The Bad Plus with Wendy Lewis performs in the studios of KPLU-FM/88.5 at 12:20 p.m. Friday.

*The Metropolitan Opera performs Dvorak's "Rusalka" at 10 a.m. Saturday on KING-FM/98.1.

*Jim Wilke's "Jazz Northwest" at 1 p.m. Sunday on KPLU-FM features performances by the Roosevelt and Garfield high school jazz bands.

*The Sunday edition of Jim French's "Imagination Theatre," heard at 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday on KIXI-AM/880, includes a new Harry Nile mystery.

P-I reporter Bill Virgin can be reached at 206-448-8319 or billvirgin@seattlepi.com.]]> Wed, 11 Mar 2009 21:58:28 hamnack