Nextradio Outcome Leaves a Void Effort to Promote Hybrid Radio App and Build FM Chip Awareness Produces Disappointing Outcome

INSIDE OHM’S LAW — Page 20

JANUARY 16, 2019 | The News Source for Radio Managers and Engineers | $5.00 | RADIOWORLD.COM NextRadio Outcome Leaves a Void Effort to promote hybrid radio app and build FM chip awareness produces disappointing outcome

BY RANDY J. STINE

The founders of NextRadio thought they had the next big thing with FM radio on smartphones. They secured financial backing for their launch effort from a consortium Buyer’s Guide: Phone & Talk Show of radio broadcast groups. They paid millions of dollars to Sprint and other cellular carriers to activate FM chips Management Systems Page 23 in Android handsets they sold. With the NAB’s help they launched massive public education campaigns. Even FCC Chairman Ajit Pai was in their corner, e-Radio Looks for touting the importance of activating FM reception capability in the interest of public safety. Its Big Break The point was to regain more FM portability by allowing listeners to After years of laying the groundwork, the tune to local radio stations on their smartphones via a built-in receiver chip, An earlier promotional image for company thinks commercialization is not far off (continued on page 10) NextRadio. ◗DATACASTING consumption via radio and be divided among various stakeholders, includ- BY JAMES CARELESS ing the radio owners involved. Such connectivity would allow Up to $55 billion annually. That’s a utility to reduce power consump- the estimate of value that could be tion during peak periods, or instruct created if U.S. FM stations were to heaters and air conditioners to boost add electrical appliance control mes- their usage during off-peak periods sages to their data feeds. Revenue to “bank” this energy against the next would come from utility companies high demand period. remotely managing consumer power (continued on page 4)

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The smartest audience engagement and content production radio has ever seen. 4 RADIOWORLD | @radioworld_news RadioWorldMagazine NEWS January 16, 2019 E-RADIO FM signals. The company operates in the An e-Radio module in action atop (continued from page 1) United States and Canada; it is a water heater The projection is a breathtaking also a member of the global RDS one, given that the current rev- Forum and hopes to build a foot- enue of the U.S. commercial radio print in other markets. It has about industry is generally estimated to a dozen full- and part-time employ- be anywhere from $13 billion to ees and is privately held; Jackson $21 billion. But it is the conten- Wang is majority owner. tion of Jackson Wang, founder and The firm’s energy management CEO of e-Radio Inc., that stations approach — which Wang said has could have a big piece of that pie. been proven feasible in field tests Radio World has reported about with radio stations and power utili- this “smart grid” company sev- ties — is to send the appliance eral times in the past decade and device instructions via one-way FM recently checked back in. RDS signals as required. According The Toronto-based firm is owner to the company, its Utility Message of a patented communications solu- Channel via RDS on FM can reach issues, are more vulnerable and tion and operates wireless commu- over 300 million people and their failure-prone and could be discon- nications networks. Its FM receiver devices in about two seconds. This nected any time the homeowner modules can be integrated into a allows utilities to reduce or boost replaces their router.” variety of smart grid devices for electricity usage on a near-imme- The company is now conduct- residential, commercial and small diate basis. ing field testing with HD Radio industrial applications — water “FM RDS provides a reliable, as well. heaters, HVAC equipment and so economical and easy-to-provision on — using FM broadcasting as its one-way path to these IoT appli- DRIVING DATA REVENUE? communications platform. ances,” said Wang. What Wang has been telling A growing number of such “Appliances equipped with our broadcasters for some time is that appliances are capable of being small P2D 2045 FM receivers all this represents an unrealized remotely addressed now, thanks to work immediately once activated, revenue opportunity for FM broad- their built-in “internet of things” and generally do not require main- casters. data reception architecture; how- tenance over time. In contrast, IoT- For many stations, the data ever, the e-Radio platform does not enabled appliances that rely on infrastructure that transmits station rely on the internet, but on those the internet have inherent privacy (continued on page 5) NEWS radioworld.com | RADIOWORLD 5 THIS ISSUE (continued from page 4) “Many IoT devices do not need two- JANUARY 16, 2019 info such as identification and artist/ way data communications to be suc- song names has not produced revenue, cessfully remotely-controlled,” he said. NEWS whether we’re talking about analog “In many instances, FM data is the NextRadio Outcome Leaves a Void .... 1 RDS or digital HD Radio. most efficient, economical and reli- e-Radio Looks for Its Big Break ...... 1 Glynn Walden knows a lot about able way to send information to these Benefit From RDS Guideline Update ... 3 e-Radio. In his former role as CBS devices. The proof that the messages Radio senior VP of engineering and were received and acted upon will be How Smart Will AI Get? ...... 8 now as a consultant to its successor evident to the utilities when their power Entercom, Walden has worked with consumption falls or rises a few seconds 8 e-Radio to coordinate demo projects. later.” He and Wang co-chair the National Radio Systems Committee’s DRB PROFIT POTENTIAL Subcommittee, and Walden hopes to be Making money from RDS/HD by an “active participant” in a rollout of the adding appliance control messages to system on HD Radio. their feeds is obviously attractive to He said that the problem dogging FM broadcasters. What problems might it data is its one-way, one-to-many data cause for stations who add these mes- Thinkstock/Rafik transmission model. sages to their RDS feeds? FEATURES More Thoughts on Split Type “N” Connectors ...... 14 We have proven that e-Radio works, and that Lights, Power, Ground, Back it serves the public in a new way, saving utilities in Action! ...... 16 Broadcaster Alpha Media explained Ohm’s Law Answers Your money while generating revenues for ourselves the concept on its website. “If you Questions ...... 20 think FM radio and water heaters and radio broadcasters. sounds like a funny pairing, you’re not alone, but let us tell you more 16 — Jackson Wang about this innovative technology and how you can help.”

“Every time we came up with a Ownership group Alpha Media in that for them.” one-way data application that worked 2017 worked with e-Radio to test the Under the program, e-Radio pro- over HD Radio, someone came up with appliance control messaging system via vided both stations with UMC data a solution that was deployable over a FM RDS. feeds to insert into their RDS streams. two-way channel like the internet,” he “We ran pilot programs in Portland, Providing this service “was very low said. “It made it pretty hard to monetize Ore., over KINK(FM) and Wenatchee, impact in terms of our operations,” HD data and earn revenue from this Wash., over KKRV(FM),” said Mike said Everhart. “We were able to pro- 20 data channel as a result. With IoT, there Everhart, Alpha Media’s director of vide them with secured access into our could be billions of devices only in need engineering. “e-Radio came to us want- broadcast IT network to use certain of one-way data.” ing to lease unused data capacity on our data blocks on the RDS encoders, and Walden is convinced that Wang has existing RDS carriers, to test remotely- it was just very, very easy to do. It took found a way to make RDS earn money controlling loads for the electric utili- minimal involvement by our IT people for radio broadcasters. ties. We were happy to help facilitate to enable this.” As for the profit potential for radio become familiar with this method of broadcasters? “e-Radio paid us a rea- RDS transmitting alerts to devices. sonable sum for carrying their service (continued from page 3) In addition, in Annex 1 RDS Use within our RDS data,” replied Everhart. BUYER’S GUIDE Cases, two new applications are dis- “If that was extrapolated across the Comrex VH2 Doubles as Disaster 3. RDS RT+/RadioText parsed cussed, including recent work from country, it could be a significant revenue Recovery Tool for Entercom...... 23 metadata Global Security Systems’ Earthquake boost for our industry.” Tech Updates ...... 23–26 Early Warning system, and Wisconsin Despite a decade of working to grow Who’s Buying What ...... 24 4. RDS RadioText metadata Public Radio’s implementation of e-Radio and lobbying for awareness Emergency Alert System text as an among broadcasters and utilities, Wang OPINION 5. RDS PS metadata input to their Metadata Management believes there is dramatic potential System for displaying text-based EAS upside. “Utilities are an extremely con- What NAB Told the FCC About the 6. No metadata — just frequency/ alerts via RDS and HD PSD. servative industry — read: glacial pace Digital Marketplace ...... 28 dial position stated in MHz; Alan Jurison is a senior opera- (continued on page 6) i.e., 88.1 MHz, 98.5 MHz, 107.9 tions engineer for iHeartMedia’s MHz Engineering and Systems Integration Group. He chairs the NRSC Metadata Radio World (ISSN: 0274-8541) is published U.S. radio stations bi-weekly with additional issues in February, April, EMERGENCY ALERTING Usage Working Group. His opinions are Nautel Emergency alerting via broadcast are not necessarily those of iHeart- June, August, October and December by Future customers. US, Inc., 11 West 42nd Street, 15th Floor, New radio continues to be an important Media, the NRSC or Radio World. York, NY 10036-8002. Phone: (703) 852-4600, topic for the industry. A new sec- Got a question about best prac- Fax: (703) 852-4583. Periodicals postage rates tion 8.3 discusses the HD Radio tices for RDS? Email them to us at are paid at New York, NY and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Emergency Alerting platform in detail. [email protected] and we’ll Radio World, P.O. Box 282, Lowell, MA 01853. This is very helpful to broadcasters to ask Alan. nautel.com 6 RADIOWORLD | @radioworld_news RadioWorldMagazine NEWS January 16, 2019 E-RADIO Authority and Portland General Electric as a “one-stop shop” for the utilities. “The networks we’ve done agree- — “demonstrates that smart water heat- “However, for full-scale commercial ments with over the years can cover the (continued from page 5) ers can eliminate a major barrier to deployments, we are looking at other majority of the population in the North of change,” he said. “However, just alternative energy growth while reduc- possible structures that are commensu- American continent. As many of them like glaciers, once momentum is finally ing the need for the majority of inef- rate with additional contributions and are part of a network of stations, more gained, it can be unstoppable.” ficient (mostly dormant) peaker plants investments from partners,” Wang said. can be added quickly via our relations He points to a recently published at a cost a fraction of electrical storage Over two decades, the company has with their corporate management teams.” BPA report as a key development; he devices … The multi-year study further done test installations in approximate- On the station end, the equipment feels it provides detailed technical and showed that e-Radio’s patented technol- ly 30 markets. “All of them can be needs would vary based on a broadcast- financial proof that the concept is sound ogy can help U.S. (West Coast) utilities switched to be full-time Utility Message er’s existing equipment. “We have over and will put e-Radio onto the path of satisfy their customers’ overwhelm- Channel stations on short notice as the years accumulated many more tools commercialization. ing support for renewable energy as a we commercialize.” He said e-Radio to adapt each to be a live UMC station,” According to the announcement, this source they expect utilities to provide.” has agreements with major private and Wang said. “It can range from no hard- study — which involved e-Radio and How would the business work? In public networks, some listed under the ware at all, just network access security eight utilities, such as Bonneville Power its current model, e-Radio would act News tab on its website. settings, to full encoder/servers etc.” And how much might a given station earn? Wang didn’t give specific numbers to Radio World. “The lower part of the range is in line with existing market rates for the bandwidth ARRAKIS SYSTEMS INC. required. However, some broadcasters are considering more of a partnership arrangement, which can be significantly more interesting than just being a bandwidth provider.” ARC-8 only $849 ALWAYS THE WHAT NEXT? ARC-10 The company believes it has proven from $1,699 LEADER the viability of its FM RDS model in numerous field tests. It won a 2015 CES ARC-15 For more than 35 years, Innovations Awards for its P2D 2045 from $3,799 (continued on page 8) Arrakis Systems has led the way with ground breaking innovations in cost effec- A TECH CAREER tive, reliable Radio consoles... including USB, Jackson Wang, founder MARC-15 Bluetooth, world standard DANTE IP connectivity and CEO of from $5,499 for ALL consoles and ‘New for 2018' the DARC e-Radio, was an aerospace engi- series AoIP consoles. neering officer in the Canadian military; he then worked as a systems engineer with Litton Guidance and Control Systems on the U.S. Tomahawk Cruise Missile program and at the Ontario Ministry of Transport as a senior project manager specializ- ing in public/private partnerships. He co-chairs the U.S. National Radio Systems Committee’s Digital Radio Broadcasting subcommittee. According to his bio, he also leads the Broadcast subcommittee of D.A.R.C. the Home to Grid (H2G) Domain Expert Working Group of the U.S. Dante AoIP Radio Console Smart Grid Interoperability Panel. uses the world standard DANTE He was a founding committee chairman of Advanced Traveler IP protocol with more than 300 Information Systems of the Society manufacturers and 1,000 compatible of Automotive Engineers and past operate from chair of International Organization products. From only $2,300. for Standardization (ISO) TC/204 anywhere that you WG10.1 subcommittee on have wideband internet !!! advanced traveler services integration. He’s the principle author of numerous U.S. and international patents in the field of broadcast- based datacasting. 8 RADIOWORLD | @radioworld_news RadioWorldMagazine NEWS January 16, 2019 How Smart Will AI Get? Welcome to the era of contextual awareness Any device with a camera will be ◗TECHNOLOGY the beneficiary of advances in machine vision and neural network-powered BY GREG SCOBLETE object classification, enabling cameras to differentiate objects in a scene, rec- While artificial intelligence has been ognize human faces and more. Home kicked around academic computer sci- security cameras, for instance, can learn ence departments for decades, it’s enjoy- to distinguish home owners from visi- ing an unprecedented public moment tors and analyze exterior behavior for as the fruits of machine learning and signs of trouble, O’Donnell said. While neural networks become an inescapable sophisticated facial-recognition technol- part of our daily lives. ogies do raise privacy concerns, some of At CES 2019, products that leverage the early use-cases (like unlocking your some form of artificial intelligence were phone) have proven very popular among expected to be ubiquitous. consumers, Deb added. And, according to analysts tracking One of the big shifts that’s under- the development of artificial intelli- way concerns how AI devices acquire gence, we’d better get used to it. knowledge. Thinkstock/Rafik ness” will be extremely important for IN THE RECIPE autonomous vehicles and personalized To understand how AI will evolve, robotics as well, O’Donnell said. Both it helps to think of it less as a thing Improvement in edge-device intelligence need an immense of data to navigate on by itself and more as an “ingredient their own, but the real world constantly technology,” said Sayon Deb, senior will mean a more personalized experience — throws new data at them. Vehicles and/ research analyst at the Consumer devices that are smart enough to learn your or robots that can perform localized Technology Association. Like salt, it learning but then upload those results will be sprinkled liberally into in a wide unique patterns and even attempt to anticipate to the cloud will help in the collective range of products, software and services effort to make robotic devices more but not in the same way or to the same them, O’Donnell said. intelligence. degree. Asking how big the demand for This two-way communication does AI will be in consumer and business raise privacy concerns, particularly markets is a bit like asking about the when it comes to the kind of granular, demand for USB ports, Deb noted. “It’s Today, much of the machine learning able to perform their own local learning, location-based data that contextually so large because it’s everywhere.” that powers AI capabilities is performed O’Donnell said. aware devices can generate, O’Donnell In the near-term, look for AI-powered in the cloud, where developers can har- Chips from NVIDIA, AMD, Qual- said. Ironically, the better devices get improvements to arrive in any device ness massive amounts of computing comm and others are increasingly at edge learning, the less they’ll need to that uses sensors to interact with the power and ingest huge data sets that no capable of running AI algorithms and send personalized data up to the cloud, real world, in particular, via voice- local desktop or tiny electronic device conducting some sparse local learning he added. based interfaces, predicted Bob has the memory or processing power to without a server farm. This improve- While personalized devices grow O’Donnell, president and chief analyst cope with. The results of this learning ment in edge-device intelligence will more responsive, AI will also be lever- at TECHnalysis Research. Advances in get loaded onto so-called edge devic- mean a more personalized experience aged by more businesses to automate natural language processing will enable es (your security camera, your smart — devices that are smart enough to learn and augment the work previously done devices such as smart speakers to bet- speaker) which then interact with the your unique patterns and even attempt by humans. According to a recent report ter understand and respond to verbal world, but no longer acquire any new to anticipate them, O’Donnell said. You from Forrester Research, natural lan- commands. It will also deliver voice knowledge about it. could, for instance, have user interfaces guage processing will combine with interaction to new product categories. on devices that refine themselves on the robot process automation to build more The spread of Amazon’s Alexa is a good IT’S IN THE CONTEXT basis of real-time feedback from the user. responsive chatbots, organize unstruc- example of the trend, Deb said. But edge devices will increasingly be This so-called “contextual aware- tured business data and automate a variety of business tasks. United States, Canada and the rest of the world,” he said. This business automation naturally E-RADIO As an example, Wang points to an information web page gives rise to concerns that as AI gets (continued from page 6) posted by Alpha Media at www.kink.fm/energy-efficient/, smarter, we’ll collectively be automated which provides visitors with information about the pilot pro- out of a job. One widely cited study FM radio module in the Tech For A Better World product gram and its possible future benefits. Alpha also ran public from Oxford University’s Martin School category. service announcements on air and on its website. noted that 47 percent of jobs, includ- Still, the radio industry cannot profit from e-Radio’s “We would love to work with broadcasters to do com- ing many white-collar professions, are technology until it is widely deployed by utility companies munity outreach and to work with them to engage corre- vulnerable to automation. CTA’s Deb nationwide; without that deployment, e-Radio will not be sponding local utilities as potential customers for our ser- sees those fears as unfounded, at least leasing RDS capacity on a major scale. No major deploy- vices,” Wang added. “Radio and utilities are both local [and] for now. What studies like the one from ment means no $55 billion a year to the radio industry. market-focused, and have special opportunities to connect. Oxford can’t measure is the new jobs Wang hopes broadcasters can be partners in spreading the “We have proven that e-Radio works, and that it serves that AI may create, Deb said. word. the public in a new way, saving utilities money while gen- “There’s bound to be growing pains,” “We need radio broadcasters to help us get the news out erating revenues for ourselves and radio broadcasters,” he Deb said, “but the potential of AI is about our appliance-messaging technology, and to help us concluded. “All we need now is a widespread commercial boundless.” begin full commercial deployments with utilities across the deployment, to deliver substantial benefits for everyone.” This article originally appeared in the CES 2019 Daily.