All AM stations should have access to any FM translator, iHeartMedia said in an ex parte filing posted Thursday in FCC docket 13-249. In a meeting with Commissioner Michael O'Rielly, CEO Bob Pittman and other executives pushed for a variety of steps aimed at revitalizing AM radio, including authorizing all-digital AM operations on an experimental basis and the FM translator access, which "would allow AM stations to expand audience by reaching listeners who do not tune into the AM band due to signal quality or other issues," iHeartMedia said. The company also urged against reducing interference protections for Class A stations, saying that could harm the AM band.

Pandora began offering mobile programmatic advertising, a company news release said Tuesday. It said the program, which has been in beta stage since March, offers Pandora's display inventory across mobile device and tablet platforms, letting advertisers more effectively reach target audiences. Since its release in beta, the program has "been leveraged by such brands as Ford and agencies including Essence," said the streaming music company.

Sirius XM, which is defending itself in multiple class-action lawsuits about how it calls customers, took its complaints on interpretation of the 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act to the FCC, said an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 02-278. The meeting followed a filing last month in which Sirius laid out its objections to how the FCC has implemented the automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS) sections of that law. The FCC is expected to clarify the definition of an ATDS later this year (see 1505210034). Such a clarification to include a preview dialer -- which presents information about a customer to an agent who then dials by manually using a mouse to click the number on a screen -- as an ATDS should include language protecting those who up until now have used preview dialers in compliance with FCC rules and the Consumer Protection Act, the satellite company said.

IHeartRadio, iHeartMedia's streaming radio and digital music service, is now available on the Xbox One, iHeartRadio said in a Tuesday news release. Listeners can download the app from the Xbox Store, it said. IHeartRadio's in-home integrations include Amazon Echo, Android TV, Roku, Sonos and Xbox 360.

It’s “still too early” for the U.K. government to start the countdown toward a hard switchover from analog to digital radio, Ed Vaizey, the U.K. minister for culture and the digital economy, told the annual Drive to Digital conference Friday at BBC headquarters in London. “It might be right in a couple of years,” Vaizey said. “We are making really good progress, and 2017 now looks very likely for a time when whatever government is in power can take stock and set a timetable.” In late 2013, Vaizey laid out his conditions for starting a countdown toward a digital switchover, saying most radio listening in the U.K. needs to be digital, and that digital transmitter coverage has to match that of FM. Digital listening now stands at 38 percent and both the BBC and commercial radio stations are building more transmitters, partly with funding from the government and partly by the broadcasters, Vaizey said. “It’s a difficult and complex process,” Vaizey said of building digital transmitter coverage. The BBC is now at 95 percent coverage and should be at 97 percent by the end of this year, he said. However, the commercial and local networks still offer significantly less coverage, he said. Two-thirds of all new cars in the U.K. now come with a factory-installed digital radio, compared with 4 percent only five years ago, Vaizey said. “So we are now closer to the goal of radio switchover. But converting the existing ‘park’ of analog cars and trucks remains a challenge.” On the thorny issue of continuing to allow the sale of analog-only radios, Vaizey said: “It’s controversial and retailers who know their customers don’t want to push them away from products they want to buy. I want this to be driven by the customers. If radios can get both analogue and digital I want it to seem ridiculous not to buy a radio with digital.”

Broadcast engineers urged the FCC to focus AM revitalization efforts on making rule modifications that allow AM stations to have flexibility. Technical changes that are possible today shouldn’t be held up by consideration of replacement strategies “involving reallocation of other spectrum for relocation of AM stations or a Quixotic quest for FM translator frequencies for all AM stations,” engineers from du Treil Lundin and Hatfield and Dawson broadcast consulting firms said in an ex parte filing in docket 13-249. They asked the FCC to keep in mind that not all AM stations are viable as businesses. Stations that are viable can benefit from being able to increase their coverage areas “if the ones that aren’t were out of the way,” they said. The FCC could allow station owners to work that out by including changes in the contingent application rules as well as implementation of the form of tax incentive program “that was previously used to encourage minority ownership of broadcast stations,” they said. The rules that enforce stringent daytime and nighttime first-adjacent protection should be undone, they said. They also urged the FCC to publish rules allocating the expanded band stations “to overlay those that were assigned after the initial rulemaking was concluded,” they said.