Tech Roundup

D'Addio is a seven-year veteran of VITEC, and brings more than 25 years of video expertise and executive leadership to his new role. 

GatesAir has again expanded its global sales team with the appointment of an outside sales professional who has spent the last five years managing field service and repairs for more than 70 companies in the energy and utility industries.

How can broadcast media reach the decision makers who control spending of the billions of dollars in political advertising that will be placed during the 2018 election campaigns? Here's a database with contact information for all levels of races and issues, from local to national. Newspapers have profited from this tool that's now available to radio and TV.

A new voice-controlled speaker from Harman Kardon is powered with the Cortana voice recognition system from Microsoft. And, it is now capable of accessing one of the widely used streaming audio apps — iHeartRadio.

Mr. Master and Premiere Networks have reached an agreement that sees Premiere serve as the exclusive sales representative for Mr. Master’s Automation Import Manager (AIM) software. AIM allows stations to automatically process their audio, place it into automation systems, and post the exact time of airing back to the content provider.

Tired of having to switch streaming audio platforms in order to listen to your favorite iHeartRadio stations and Alpha Media stations via a smartphone, laptop, or tablet? That's no longer a problem. Effective today, all of Alpha's 200-plus stations are available to iHeartRadio users.

Don't think for a minute that the potential growth in in-home listening from Smart Speakers from makers such as Amazon Echo and Google Home are only for big-city broadcasters? There's gold in them thar hills, valleys and villages for radio broadcasters, and Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker is about to let the nation know all about it.

Emmis subsidiary TagStation LLC on Tuesday revealed that its NextRadio app is now available in the nation of South Korea. And, it's not a streaming audio version that's being touted. Rather, this app -- like that available to Android-powered smartphones in the U.S. -- allows listeners to tune in live-and-local FM radio stations over their phones.

Could everyday household Smart Speakers be the new home AM/FM radio? Why not? More listeners are making user-friendly personal smart speakers such as the Amazon Echo and Google Home their first choice for audio. Can the industry capitalize on this to expand radio's reach? The answers will come at Forecast 2018 on Nov. 15 in New York.

Considering a 4K UHD HCAM wireless camera system? Perhaps xG Technology's Vislink, which works with broadcast industry clients, has something worth investing in. British firm Broadcast RF Ltd. believes so strongly in Vislink that it's placed an order worth $400,000 for 10 HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) 4K UHD HCAM wireless camera systems.

For 33 years, this individual led the engineering efforts of all Greater Media stations. With the company's sale to Beasley Broadcast Group, it was time for a change ... or retirement. The former was selected, and the result is the rebranding of an engineering consultancy that directly acknowledges his arrival.

R&S PRISMON, the software-based monitoring and multi-viewer solution from Munich-based Rohde & Schwarz, has passed all Dolby Laboratories certification tests. It's a big win for R&S, as Dolby is a leading manufacturer of audio codecs.

Belar Electronics has unveiled its latest innovations for analog and digital AM modulation, as the RF monitoring firm has completed its updates for its legacy AMMA-2. The company says this allows for more efficient operation within HD Radio and MDCL systems.

A leading provider of drone services for "enterprise customers" has refined the way it wishes to work with the entire arts and entertainment industry -- including broadcast media companies. With that, Measure has launched Measure Media (M2), which the company calls "the first nationwide network of full-time drone pilots specializing in meeting the airborne storytelling needs of both small screen and big screen projects."

It's been a little more than three months since Bruce Swail has been at the helm of GatesAir, one of the world's leading transmitter vendors, working closely with radio and television broadcasters on all-things focused on bringing a clean, quality signal to consumers. In that time, it is fair to say that Swail has jumped head-first into an industry provider serving an industry at the cusp of massive change. In this exclusive interview with RBR+TVBR's WEEKLY TECH UPDATE, Swail gives us a glimpse into what's tops in his world, and what the radio and TV industry's C-Suite should keep their eyes on in 2018.