The Monthly Update is an online newsletter posted on a monthly basis to update media professionals who may also be AFOLs and or for media professionals who work with Lego or Minifig news operations.
Local Media Events
MISAB-XP to Occur between October 12th – 14th
The Minibrick State Association of Broadcasters-XP or Express Show will occur online between October 12th to the 14th. This will include a dozen of professional webminars. More information will follow on the official website, misab.org
MISAB Showcases COVID19 Recovery
The Minibrick State Association of Broadcasters is showcasing the radio, TV and digital platforms of how they have thrived and persevered their communities during one of the worst pandemics known to history. In a state of nearly 20,000 reported cases, with 5,000 deaths; some days were worse than others to cover. A mini documentary will be presented by October for the MISAB ShowXP
RU on the Right FQ?
Some Municipal Safety radio signals are reported to not be using proper frequencies for unlicensed signals. Consult with the MISAB to ensure you’re in compliance so no one is coming knocking at your door!
Stations Not Shamed for Pre Downsizing prior to COVID19
2 Eleanor Communications stations in Copenhagen developed the “Newsroom of the future” by downsizing their newsrooms in 2018 to only in-studio personnel to have assigned workspaces. Any field reporters; assigned to be out in the field; would solely be a field worker and not show up at the studio. This has brought a lot of attention and pushback amongst station personnel, now after the impacts of COVID19, field reporters have come to acceptance; that perhaps communicating with station people via screens is better than have no interactions at all.
Global Real-World Media Stories
E.W. Scripps unloads Podcast unit to Sirius XM
E.W. Scripps will make $300,000,000 roughly to unload a podcast unit, Stitcher to Sirius XM, according to the people familiar to the matter from The Wall Street Journal. Stitcher is under competitive pressures from Spotify; and others. (Head to Nieman Journalism Lab)
Boston’s AMP Radio becomes the Dog or BIG 103
The radio business in Boston has and always will be unstable, 103.3 FM on the dial in Central New England has gone through some format changes, this time for the first in nearly 8, it’s been rebranded as the “Big 103” as the former’s format had only a 1% share. (Head to Fybush-dot-com)
KNX Radio, Celebrates Centennial in September
The station that was first known as “The Voice of Hollywood”, airing originally live events in Southern California, began it’s air on September 10th, 1920. This September 10th, it will celebrate it’s 100 year anniversary, now as an Entercom all news radio station. (Head to RadioWorld)
Entravision Settles with PRO for Playing Copy-Protected Songs 10,000 Times
GMR, one of the four major PRO entities had settled Entravision; avoiding an actual lawsuit; after determining that the company’s radio stations had spun songs in GMR’s catalog more than 10,000 times between 2017 and 2019. GMR’s suit alleged that it warned Entravision its stations were not authorized to publicly perform its works unless the Hispanic media company signed the interim licensing deal that was being offered to broadcasters. A countersuit that had a antitrust claim was thrown out of court last year. Head to (InsideRadio)
Repack Completes; changing the history of Digital TV
Phase 10 of the major repacking of US DTV signals concluded on July 3rd, reassigning frequencies of nearly 1,000 TV stations that began 39 months before. Some stations such as the Cox Media Group’s WFOX-TV requested a delay though. The so-called repacking process is diluting over the air TV signals to reassign radio airwaves for cellular, like 5G technologies. This comes at the price of receiving over the air TV signals without any broadband (Cable TV or Internet streaming) as the signals would require more power and more signal coverages. This also allows multiplexing, and in some instances, some major local TV stations are using the same signal to broadcast their separate signals. What it means to consumers is still debated. (Head to TV Technology)
Providence TV Reporter Fights Back Against Bodyshaming, from an Unhappy Viewer.
WJAR-TV (Providence’s NBC 10) reporter Lindsay Iadeluca went onto Facebook on June 25th to out a person leaving strong and personally destructive remarks on her work’s voicemail. Quoting part of the message, the caller asked Iadeluca “Do you go for skinny girl shopping?” and ending with” How immature do you look? How vulgar do you look?”
She took onto Facebook with a followup on June 28th with “I’m sorry you are looking at my ‘private area’ instead of listening to the important news I am delivering. And most of all, I’m terribly sorry you felt the need to leave this on a 28-year-old woman’s voicemail. Peace and Love. Sincerely, Lindsay Iadeluca, a professional news anchor for NBC10 who also is a size 8/10 and couldn’t be happier with who she has become as a woman physically, mentally and career wise.” (Head to Boston-dot-com)
FCC Fines Non-Comm LPFM Station for airing 1,600 apparent advertising spots
A Fort Collins-Greeley, CO market low-power FM has been slapped with a $15,000 fine by the Federal Communications Commission after it determined the station aired more than 1,600 commercials promoting a variety of products and services during a three-month period in 2018. The FCC says adult standards “Pirate Radio 104.7” KELS-LP violated the Commission’s rules prohibiting commercial advertisements on noncommercial educational stations. “Each announcement refers either to specific qualities or attributes of the respective underwriters and their products and seeks to distinguish them from competitors or contains language of inducement,” said the head of the enforcement bureau at the FCC. (Head to Inside Radio)
Artist Behind “Devil Went Down to Georgia” passes at 83
Charlie Daniels, better known behind hits like The Devil Went Down passed away at 83 with a herrorhagic stroke on July 6th. A mix of rock and old school country, he had been known for the 80s for several hits. In recent years, he joined the Grand Ole Opry and was inducted in the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2008 and 2016 respectively (Head to Variety)
NYT Pulls Out of Apple News
“It’s time to re-examine all of our relationships with the big platforms,” New York Times COO Meredith Levien told Ken Doctor at the Nieman Journalism Lab. Their decision follows a massive advertising boycott of major US companies against Facebook for instigating their own platform for alleged hate speech and misinformation campaigns. (More at Nieman Journalism Lab)
NASCAR’S First NBC Race of the Season locks 4m Viewers on Independence Day Weekend
The first NASCAR Race for the season on NBC that lead into primetime due to delayed start of an afternoon race because of thunderstorms; scored a 4.08 million viewers in the key demo ages 18-49; with a sixth-tenth of a percent ratings share, while other competing programs had lower shares. This is also the first season in many years for NASCAR to change it’s seasonal schedule to different tracks, this season the around-July 4th week, was at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway; Historically the mid season race occurred in Daytona Motor Speedway. The changes were announced at the start of the 2019 season, with no correlation to COVID19. Fox will still be carrying a couple races likely postponed because of the coronavirus break for the next couple of weeks before it’s exclusively on NBC for the rest of the season. (Head to The Hollywood Reporter)
Our Next scheduled issue should be in late July to Early August.
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