Traffic Director Salary Survey Shows Increase

Temecula, CA - Feb 1, 2004 – The Traffic Directors Guild of America, serving the nation’s radio and television traffic directors, reports higher salary and compensation levels in all but one category for the professional broadcasters charged with scheduling commercials and underwriting credits. For the first time, the 2003/2004 report includes the addition of television traffic salary information. Television is broken out by DMA market size groupings and offers both over-the-air stations and a category for cable TV network traffic personnel. Radio data was divided by ARB market rankings in the 12-page study of charts and graphs.

Commercial radio traffic salaries jumped by $4,946.60 - more than 15 percent - in average salaries. Even with public radio minor slippage factored into the survey, radio traffic still grew nearly 12.5 percent as reported in the annual salary survey report. With the inclusion of television data for the first year, growth patterns for this category were not available.

Combining both commercial and non-commercial public radio stations, the average traffic director salary was $36,582.97. In the past four years of measurement, this was the first year commercial radio pulled ahead of its public radio counterparts. Television station traffic department personnel averaged $38,922.85, while TV network personnel averaged salaries of $69,583.33.

Results were tabulated from a record response of 2,072 completed returns across all categories measured by the Traffic Directors Guild.

This year's report is the result of the collective efforts of 2,072 individual, combo or multi-station clusters reporting to TDGA. The data was provided primarily by traffic directors, but also came from general managers, business managers, office managers and other positions. Four qualifying questions limit the actual data used only to titles collectively refered to as traffic directors or equivalent titles.

According to the TDGA, while the increase in average salary exceeds 15 percent for commercial radio, the number of people in each station's traffic departments and the number of actual broadcast logs now being prepared by many multi-station operations has increased. All markets combined show the second significant increase in workload in the past two years. Salaries have increased by 15 percent, but the workload of additional logs is up by 27.6 percent.

Clear Channel Calls on FCC to Evaluate Indecency Standards

San Antonio, TX - Jan 27, 2004 – Clear Channel has called on the FCC to convene an industry-wide "Local Values Task Force" to develop indecency guidelines that would apply fairly and evenly across all media platforms that distribute content, including television, radio, cable and satellite networks. Mark Mays, president of Clear Channel Communications, said that the Task Force should be convened under the auspices of the FCC, but that the industry has a unique responsibility to step up to the plate and address the problem head on.

Clear Channel has suggested the job of the Task Force should be:

• To develop guidelines that carefully balance First Amendment rights with local community values.

• To ensure that all media platforms, including television, radio, cable and satellite, are treated fairly and equally.

• To eliminate confusion over what is and is not acceptable behavior over our airwaves and through cable networks into our homes.
  
  Mays cautioned that by continuing to deal with this issue on a case-by-case, platform-by-platform basis, the government is creating an atmosphere of confusion and uncertainty.

ADI Files for Emergency Radio Signalling

Broadcast Electronics Acquired by Thompson Street Capital Partners

Quincy, IL - Jan 28, 2004 - Thompson Street Capital Partners, a private equity firm based in St. Louis, MO, has joined with the management of Broadcast Electronics to acquire the company. Hoak Capital, a private equity firm based in Dallas was the seller. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Broadcast Electronics is a manufacturer of RF transmission and broadcast automation systems for the worldwide radio market. BE's products include analog and IBOC AM and FM transmitters, Marti remote broadcasting products and Audiovault digital automation system. BE's manufacturing facility and headquarters are located in Quincy, IL.

This is the fifth platform investment for Thompson Street Capital Partners, founded by James Cooper and Peter Finley.

Spectrasite to Discontinue Broadcast Services Division

Cary, NC - Jan 23, 2004 - On Dec. 16, 2003, Spectrasite decided to discontinue its broadcast services division. The assets and liabilities associated with this division have been classified as held for sale, and the division is currently being marketed for sale.

As of Sept. 30, 2003, Spectrasite owned or operated about 10,000 revenue-producing sites, including 7,509 towers and in-building sites primarily in the top 100 markets in the United States. The Spectrasite Broadcast Group began in 2000 when Stainless and Doty Moore merged.

NASA Furnished with Equi=Tech Transformers

Selma, OR - Dec 25, 2003 - Six of Equi=Tech's model 2Q transformers were sent to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, for use with laboratory testing and data processing equipment.

While the precise use of the equipment is confidential, the Pasadena facility has many functions including tracking most every object in orbit around Earth.

Equi=Tech has furnished balanced power systems to other government organizations such as the FAA and the National Science Foundation.

Sennheiser Restructures Sales Operations

Old Lyme, CT - Jan 26, 2004 - Sennheiser made key moves in its sales and distribution organization. The changes are designed to leverage the talents of its personnel, maintain a high level of customer support and accommodate the company's ongoing growth.

As of Jan. 1, the professional division sales force will operate across three geographic regions rather than two. The three new regions - West, South/Central and Northeast - will allow the company to reduce geographically the size of each territory, devote more resources within each territory to key business issues, provide increased customer service and expand sales. To help spearhead operations in the new regions, Sennheiser has promoted key sales personnel from within the organization as well as hiring new sales people.

A newly created territory, the South/Central region is under the direction of Rick Renner, who has been promoted from Midwest professional products territory representative to South/Central regional sales manager (all brands). The South/Central territory includes North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota. In his new position, Renner joins fellow regional sales managers Lee Stein (West) and Mark Humrichouser (Northeast). All three regional managers report directly to Scott Schumer, vice president of sales.

To support the activities of the three regional sales managers, the company has created the new position of assistant regional sales manager (ARSM). Tim Murray, who recently joined Sennheiser from HHB, has been promoted to ARSM for the Western region. Jim Schanz, formerly Mid-Atlantic sales representative has been promoted to ARSM for the Northeast region. The South/Central ARSM position will be filled shortly. The three ARSMs will concentrate primarily on selling Neumann and distributed brands including Innova Son, Turbosound, Chevin Research, True Systems, HHB and Rosendahl.

Crump Joins Comrex

Devens, MA - Jan 28, 2004 - Comrex has named Chris Crump as its director of sales and marketing.

Crump is a broadcast industry veteran with 15 years experience in broadcast, sales and marketing. Crump, who most recently held the position of director of sales and marketing for Klotz Digital America, will be responsible for Comrex sales and marketing activities in the domestic and international broadcast markets.

Prior to his work with Klotz Digital, Crump served in similar positions for Symetrix, Euphonix and Spectral. His radio broadcast career includes positions as a producer at WHYT-FM in Detroit, creative services director for Paxson Communications in Orlando, FL, as well as creative director/producer for the Ron and Ron Radio Network in St. Petersburg, FL.

Audio-Technica Appoints New Directors

Stowe, OH - Jan 15, 2004 - Audio-Technica U.S. has promoted two people in its expanding sales department. Glenn Roop has been appointed director, professional product sales and Kal Mullens has been named to the position of director, strategic account sales.

Roop began his career as the owner and manager of a DJ entertainment service company in the 1980s. Roop has been a part of Audio-Technica’s sales department since 1994, building a solid network of contacts and launching a series of well-received initiatives. As director, professional product sales, Roop will oversee a team of territory managers and reps throughout the U.S. and Canada, developing a comprehensive strategy for effecting A-T’s ambitious sales objectives.

Kal Mullens has been actively involved in the music community since the mid-1970s, working as a musician, audio recording engineer and front-of-house engineer. In 1993, Mullens joined Audio-Technica, performing admirably in various capacities within the sales department. In his new position as director, strategic account sales, Mullens will maintain key account relationships to ensure Audio-Technica meets the varied needs of its customer base, keeping abreast of current and upcoming market trends.

Omnia Intros New Analog/IBOC Processor

Cleveland - Jan 29, 2004 - Adding to its line of digital audio processors, Omnia has released two versions of the Omnia-5EX: the Omnia-5EX HD+FM and Omnia-5EX HD+AM. The dual-processing structure found in the Omnia-5EX is modeled after the Omnia-6EX. Paired parallel processing paths, one optimized for conventional analog broadcasting, the other for DAB/IBOC, webcasting and satellite systems, route processed audio from the multiband mixer section to discrete output stages.

The Omnia-5EX features a two-band automatic gain control plus wideband AGC and a five-band limiter. The Omnia-5EX HD+FM is compatible with the ITU's BS-412 power specification. Omnia Space-EFX stereo enhancement is available as an option.

Terratec Shipping Sine Series Mixers

Pawbell Releases Intolocast Streaming Software

Austin, TX - Jan 26, 2004 - Pawbell, a developer of Broadcast-related software, has released a service called Intolocast, which enables a radio station to webcast without needing a large amount of bandwidth.

The Intolocast player can be customized with a station logo, music information, advertisements and other information. The Intolocast player can also be customized to list other stations in a cluster market or all stations owned by a holding company.

Typical streaming services use a unicast distribution, which creates a unique path from the server to each listener. The Intolocast service relays the stream through each listener. For example, when a listener connects to the 22kb/s stream the server checks the listener's available bandwidth to establish the proper buffer. If the listener has the additional bandwidth, the streamed signal is relayed to another listener when he connects. At the same time the server tells the listener's player where several other streams are so if the supplying relay drops the stream, the listener reconnects to another supplier.

Pawbell also claims that the webcast is an analog signal wrapped in a digital carrier, which excludes it from the fees assessed for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act because it is not a digital audio signal.

Lynx Adds SRC to AES16 Line

Costa Mesa, CA - Jan 26, 2004 - Lynx Studio Technology has added the AES16-SRC to its line of AES16 192kHz sound cards. The eight-channel AES16 began shipping in late 2003. The new card offers eight channels of sample rate conversion to accommodate facilities running multiple sample rates or signals not locked to house sync.