Radio & Television Business Report

The AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act got an urgent plea. Deal valuations got a hard second look. Disruption got a keynote. Forecast 2027 wrapped Thursday at the Harvard Club of the City of New York after a day of broadcast leaders testing market assumptions, with the sharpest insights shared only in the room.

Valari Staab has proven to be a trailblazing leader with a bevy of accomplishments. Soon, she’ll be retired. On Thursday, her efforts were celebrated by colleagues and industry leaders, as Staab was honored by the Radio + Television Business Report as the recipient of its 2026 Lifetime Leadership Award.

In what could be a fiery session, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz has moved forward with a November 18 vote on the nomination of Danielle Thumann Severs to serve as a FCC Commissioner. Meanwhile, the official publication of the United States has published new rules that kill TV's ownership limits.

Membership has its privileges, and if you have full website access to the Radio + Television Business Report, you've just received the key to unlock the autumn edition of the quarterly media broadcasting business publication known for its exclusive conversations, unique insight and straightforward stories on new technologies, each hand-crafted and designed to help your team create and development long-term growth opportunities that will make you thrive.

Over roughly 75 minutes — following a 45-minute delay — there were plenty of verbal protests from Democrats over the very nature of Danielle Thumann Severs' consideration to serve as a Commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission. Key Democratic leaders were absent.

He was a key figure at Greater Media and helped champion FM Talk in Los Angeles. Bob Moore enjoyed decades in Los Angeles broadcast radio, which included roles at Westwood One and CBS Radio. Now, the industry is pausing to remember Moore, who has passed away.

With political revenue falling short of expectations, shareholders of iHeartMedia on Tuesday engaged in a fierce sell-off of the company's Nasdaq-traded stock. Now, the nation's largest creator and distributor of audio content must contend with a downgrade from a Bank of America analyst.

Add Saga Communications to the growing group of radio broadcasting companies that, in contrast to their television industry brethren, saw their revenue decline during the third quarter of 2026. For publicly traded Saga, a net loss was seen again, but was largely impacted by a non-cash impairment charge.

Stingray isn't the purely Canadian FM-focused company it once was, thanks to its acquisition of TuneIn, and a build-out of free ad-supported streaming television offerings. Those "plus" offerings helped Stingray in a big way during its fiscal second quarter of 2027.

A company led by CEO Steve Newberry that's emerged as a leader in "visual radio" is taking one of the nation's storied media technology operations to court over claims its products infringe a patent tied to synchronized text, logos and images radio stations display on in-car screens — something championed by QUU.

Can radio and TV reverse the dollar-shift away from digital platforms, in particular with some of the advertising categories that can thrive outside of a search engine-driven consumer attraction mechanism? That was one key question covered by Borrell Associates' Corey Elliott and Gordon Borrell in a Wednesday webinar.

In early September, Sinclair Inc. moved ahead with the conversion of a longtime shared services agreement to outright ownership. Granting the application would give Sinclair Inc. a "triopoly" in Nevada's second-largest market. The FCC has said yes to the waiver request, giving it the green light to own three full-power TV stations in Reno.

In the latest merger between neighboring public media entities that sees a stronger noncommercial group assume the operations of the weaker one, the parent of WTVI-TV in Charlotte has submitted plans that will see it combine operations with PBS North Carolina.

U.S. news sources like CNN, Fox News and The New York Times tend to attract audiences that differ from one another by partisanship and education level. These distinct audiences also engage in public life in varying ways, a recent Pew Research Center analysis from the Pew-Knight Initiative released Friday finds.

As industry consolidation continues to expand streaming catalogs, viewers have no shortage of things to watch. But is finding something they actually want to watch getting any easier? Hub Entertainment Research’s annual “Conquering Content” study puts a focus on how viewers choose content, and how difficult it can be.

As someone who struggled with stuttering early in life, public speaking coach Rosemary Ravinal learned that the road to becoming a confident communicator is rarely straight or smooth. As she celebrates another trip around the sun, Ravinal presents a few things she wish someone had told her about public speaking earlier in her career.