Cox Media Group’s Orlando AM Delisted For Improper Encoding Move

By Adam Jacobson

Editor’s Note: This story was updated at 7:30pm Eastern based on newly received information from Nielsen Audio regarding the dates associated with the improper WPYO-FM PPM encoding. Additionally, SBS representatives have clarified prior statements regarding their contention that tampering of WPYO-FM following the transition of ownership of the station to SBS occurred. This alleged tampering may include PPM encoding changes but has not been verified.

Stroll down East 1st Street on a busy Saturday, and chances are you’ll hear the Caribbean-tinged Spanish spoken in Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic from passersby. The same can be said of Waterford Lakes Town Center, on the eastern edge of the City of Orlando, and traditional Hispanic communities in the Kissimmee area, on the southern edge of this ever-expanding Central Florida metropolitan area.

This growth in Spanish speakers is one reason why Spanish Broadcasting System was so eager to add WPYO-FM 95.3 in Maitland to its stable of stations, and on May 9 officially transitioned the station to “El Zol,” with a Spanish Contemporary format full of reggaetón and Latin pop. Listeners across the Orlando area are likely tuning in.

How many have flocked to “El Zol 95”? That’s up for debate, and SBS is angry. They’ve collected what they call evidence of tampering at the transmitter for WPYO. While that’s still under investigation, one thing is certain — up until two hours after SBS closed on the WPYO purchase, the station’s encoder was improperly linked to a Cox Media Group AM in the market.

Nielsen Audio is penalizing CMG for that action, while SBS lobs a bevy of accusations against the company’s Orlando operations.

According to an advisory dispatched on Tuesday afternoon by Nielsen Audio, the nation’s dominant ratings provider for radio will be reissuing the April 2022 Nielsen Audio ratings for Orlando. The re-issued data will omit Cox-owned News/Talk WDBO-AM 580, which uses an FM translator at 107.3 MHz.

It is being de-listed. As such, WDBO, ranked No. 14 in the April ratings for Orlando, will see their ratings information disappear. Any streaming ratings for the station will also be erased from the reissued April 2022 Nielsen Audio ratings for Orlando.

The reasons surrounding the de-listing of WDBO could lead to legal action between SBS and Cox Media Group. A source close to the matter tells RBR+TVBR that each company’s counsel is already in communication with one another.

Here’s where the story gets muddied, based on SBS’s claims and what Nielsen Audio has confirmed and shared with clients in Orlando.

Starting on Saturday, April 2 through approximately 10am Eastern on Friday, April 29, the PPM-encoded signal of radio station WDBO-AM was re-transmitted on WPYO-FM. This means that during this period, the authorized code of WPYO-FM was not transmitting on the 95.3 signal. As a result, listeners who tuned to 95.3 were exposed to WDBO-AM’s PPM codes, inflating the ratings data for the News/Talk station.

“This encoding activity is outside of Nielsen’s PPM Encoding and Rating Distortion Policies,” Nielsen Audio’s client notice states. As such, Nielsen on Wednesday is reissuing the April 2022 Orlando Radio Market Report without WDBO-AM. The reissued report arrives at Noon ET.

To be clear, encoding for WDBO-AM was never turned off. A Cox Media Group representative tells RBR+TVBR that encoding WDBO-AM and WPYO-FM together in April “was an inadvertent and unintended technical error.” The CMG representative adds that following SBS’s takeover of WPYO, the company no longer had access to the station’s encoder.

That may hardly satisfy SBS.

WAITING AND OBSERVING

In Orlando, April 2022 audience estimates reported for WPYO-FM reflect listening for just two days of the survey period — March 31 and April 1.

Given that information, WPYO was encoded for WDBO-AM for exactly two hours during SBS ownership — it closed on the purchase of WPYO at 8am on April 29. As Nielsen Audio sees it, WPYO-FM has been properly encoded since that time.

As seen in a video viewable by clicking this link, obtained by RBR+TVBR, pre-recorded promotional announcements indicating the forthcoming formal debut of “El Zol 95.3” were airing on WPYO-FM at an hour when encoding for WDBO-FM was still in place.

SBS says it is premature to state this as fact. “We’re still waiting for the May book, and we are still worried about it,” a company representative tells RBR+TVBR.

While PPM encoding may have been accurate since April 29, the SBS representative says the company “still saw evidence of tampering.” However, this involved “unusual and suspect tech tampering involving the broadcast signal,” which originates from a transmitter housed at Cox Media Group’s Pine Hills, Fla., transmitter site. It is the same tower used by Cox Media Group’s WMMO-FM in Orlando. “There were several power and equipment failures, during specific times including on a weekend,” the SBS representative says. “We are still looking into that.”

The May 2022 survey period is April 28-May 25.

Already, the in-house legal counsel at Cox Media Group is chatting with SBS EVP/General Counsel Richard Lara. The conversations have already broached the subject of malicious intent on the part of CMG/Orlando. Even if the WPYO PPM encoding was 100% accurate during the entire time “El Zol 95.3” was on the air in Orlando, “deliberate” actions made to harm SBS’s business are at the heart of the Hispanic media company’s arguments.

Speaking to RBR+TVBR, SBS President/COO Albert Rodriguez commented, “Cox Radio’s intentional tampering of the Nielsen encoders for the entire month before SBS took over WPYO (and continuing into the first hours of our broadcasting day) was malicious and calculated to try and silence the Hispanic voice of us and our SBS listeners. SBS and the Hispanic community of Orlando will not take this illicit and racist attack by Cox lightly. SBS will pursue all available remedies against Cox Radio (and any other complicit parties) for this unprecedented and outrageous action.”
“Cox Radio’s intentional tampering of the Nielsen encoders for the entire month before SBS took over WPYO (and continuing into the first hours of our broadcasting day) was malicious and calculated to try and silence the Hispanic voice of us and our SBS listeners.” — Albert Rodiguez, Spanish Broadcasting System

The Spanish-language radio rivalry and potential FM war between SBS and Cox Media Group pre-dates the sale of WPYO. In fact, CMG trustee Elliot Evers sought to prevent SBS from purchasing WPYO by repeatedly declining the company’s offers, even as the sale of the station had to be completed by a specific date, per FCC regulations. Evers attempted to extend that period in order to attract better offers; the Commission only awarded a short lengthening of its deadline, eventually yielding a transaction that saw SBS emerge as the buyer.

Cox Media Group has invested significantly in the success of Exitos 96.5. As RBR+TVBR reported, CMG in June 2020 shifted the “Exitos” programming from the FM translator at 107.3 MHz to the 99kw full DMA signal it now uses today. This moved WDBO’s Talk programming off 96.5 MHz to the translator while protecting the asset value of Class B WDBO-AM, while putting CMG in competition with iHeartMedia’s WRUM “Rumba 100.3” and other Hispanic-focused brands serving Orlando, Daytona Beach and the Space Coast.

With SBS in the mix and iHeartMedia offering multiple advertiser and consumer opportunities in Spanish, CMG would be forced into a three-way battle — one market observer tells RBR+TVBR. This could put a significant strain on total market resources, including those for WFTV-9, the ABC affiliate CMG owns.

A TAMPA BAY REVIEW, TOO?

The purchase of WPYO came alongside that of WSUN-FM in Tampa, now “El Zol 97.1.”

Rodriguez confirms that it will be seeking an investigation by Nielsen Audio in that market, too. “We have serious questions about Tampa as well,” he says.

Was the encoding of WSUN changed by CMG at any point before or during SBS’s purchase of the station formerly home to “97X”? That’s what SBS wants to know.

The Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater Nielsen Audio ratings for May 2022 were released to the public at 5pm Eastern. They show WSUN-FM debuting with cume of 42,800 and a 0.4 share. “El Zol 97.1” also debuted with a 0.1 AQH rating of Hispanics 25-54.

Courtesy of Radio TV Business Report