Radio CTOs Dispute GBS Testing

Geobroadcast Solutions’ testing of its ZoneCast geotargeted radio technology wasn’t comprehensive and ignored recommendations from chief technology officers and chief engineers at Beasley, Audacy, Cumulus and iHeart, said a joint filing from those CTOs and engineers posted in docket 20-401 Thursday. Those companies oppose the FCC’s geotargeted radio proposal, and Thursday’s filing is a response to a GBS ex parte filing that said the companies declined to offer input on the tests. “These tests have addressed all the specific questions pertinent to the decision before the FCC that have been raised in this proceeding,” said the GBS filing. GBS has “consistently presented the Commission with contrived field testing designed to minimize the true interference impact of its proprietary ZoneCasting proposal,” the filing said. The companies provided input to GBS in 2020 on the parameters for a proposed field test in San Francisco, but that test didn’t happen and the subsequent field tests performed by GBS weren’t as comprehensive, the filing said. “The undersigned CTOs gave their attention and knowledgeable input” as to “the minimum necessary field tests for ZoneCasting,” but GBS “misunderstood -- or ignored -- those parameters” in the tests it did do, the filing said. GBS didn’t comment.