NAB and 49 State Broadcast Associations Blast GBS Proposal

Forty-nine state broadcast associations and the NAB targeted proposals to allow geotargeted radio. In a letter to all four FCC commissioners posted in docket 20-401 Wednesday, the state groups said they represent “nearly the entire universe of radio stations in every state and territory in the United States,” and repeated concerns the tech would create difficulties for emergency alerting and reduce ad rates for all radio stations: “We urge the Commission to heed the expertise of the radio industry, which has expressed deep concern over the pending proposal.” In a meeting Friday with Media Bureau Chief Holly Saurer, NAB was critical of the tests performed by geotargeting proponent GeoBroadcast Solutions, which developed booster technology to enable the targeted broadcasts. The tests were “woefully inadequate” and the data obtained was insufficient, NAB said. “ Given the extremely limited, unique nature of this sample, the data that GBS produced is simply not applicable to the vast majority of the zone regions created by the ZoneCasting boosters,” NAB said. “It is simply unreasonable for GBS to claim that its testing of ZoneCasting in a few tiny areas offers any worthwhile information about ZoneCasting’s impact on signal quality over the much larger area that a zone encompasses.” "The NAB got its affiliated State groups to sign a letter that perpetuates the same falsehoods that NAB keeps peddling to allow small broadcasters to compete against the largest group owners which dominate the NAB," said GBS spokesperson. "We are content with letting the market decide if geo-targeting is good for radio; NAB thinks it and the largest station owners should make that decision and dictate it to the rest of the industry."