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Newberry Takes NAB Radio Board Top Slot

Radio group comes out against using Channels 5/6 to expand FM band.

Expect to see more of Steve Newberry in a high-profile “face of the industry” role.

He’s the president and CEO of Commonwealth Broadcasting and this week was elected chairman of NAB’s Radio Board. He replaces Russ Withers of Withers Broadcasting.

Charles Warfield of ICBC Broadcast Holdings was elected first vice chair. Caroline Beasley of Beasley Broadcast Group was elected second vice chair.

Newberry and Beasley are among radio group heads who have been particularly involved in the HD Radio rollout.

Newberry was said by participants to have played a notable role in prompting the recently announced embedded exporter initiative that helped bring certain transmission hardware costs down through a coordinated effort with four manufacturers and Ibiquity Digital.

At the meeting this week, Beasley discussed “future marketing efforts” to promote the embedded exporter project, according to an NAB summary.

Also this week, David Rehr was reelected as president of NAB, and Jack Sander, senior advisor to Belo Corp., was reelected chairman of the NAB Joint Board. James Yager of Barrington Broadcasting was elected chairman of the Television Board.

During this week’s board meetings, members discussed a possible HD-R power increase, the FCC’s proposed localism ruling, the recording industry’s effort to obtain performance royalties from local broadcasters, the satellite merger and the DTV transition.

Both the radio and TV boards adopted a resolution opposing the use of Channels 5 and/or 6 for radio broadcasting as proposed by Ace Radio and Mullaney Engineering.

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