GeoBroadcast Solutions, the company behind ZoneCasting technology, has formed a national advisory board to guide its geo-targeting implementation. In May, the FCC began granting limited approval for program origination on FM boosters.
GBS says the advisory board will work to ensure that communities, particularly minority and underserved populations, benefit from customized messaging, emergency notifications, and expanded public service broadcasting. Additionally, it will help establish best practices for broadcasters to activate these systems nationwide, facilitating opportunities for small, minority-owned businesses to broadcast relevant, localized content.
The advisory board comprises experienced professionals from various sectors, including radio, global communications, multimedia, and entrepreneurship. The Co-Chairs of the GeoBroadcast Solutions National Advisory Board are Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council President Emeritus and Senior Advisor David Honig, and National Newspaper Publishers Association President and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr.
Other board members include R&R Partners Senior Vice President Ryan McGinness. Roberts Radio Founder and CEO Steve Roberts, Chavis’s Senior Advisor Tish Bazil, and an anonymous financial leader.
Senior Advisors to the National Advisory Board are US Black Chamber of Commerce Chairman and CEO Ron Busby, Bustos Media CEO Amador Bustos, USBC Representative William Lacy Clay, Kizart Media Partners Founder Sherman Kizart, and National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters President Jim Winston.
The board will also focus on advancing public service messaging and emergency notifications, ensuring that minority and underserved communities receive relevant and customized content. Additionally, it will support efforts to provide minority-owned businesses with affordable and impactful advertising opportunities through geo-targeting technology.
Any best practices developed by the board will work in tandem with the already-published compliance guidelines developed by the FCC after the April Notice of Proposed Rulemaking allowing radio stations to broadcast content localized to FM boosters for three minutes of every hour.
The compliance guide states licensed FM stations can apply for experimental authority to originate programming on up to 25 FM booster stations for up to one year, with possible extensions if the FCC hasn’t established final rules by then. These boosters primarily retransmit the station’s signal but may replace content with their own programming for up to three minutes each broadcast hour, a limit that cannot be aggregated from unused minutes.
New rules require program-originating boosters to handle Emergency Alert System messages like their primary stations, including specific encoder and decoder equipment. Addressing geo-targeting concerns, the FCC specifies that a properly synchronized booster transmitting different programming is not considered to interfere with its primary station solely due to programming differences, although limited interference is permissible within defined boundaries.
