Radio & Television Business Report

As key Washington, D.C., lawyers who spoke with RBR+TVBR see it, there's little consensus on whether Trump FCC Commissioner nominee Danielle Thumann Severs will get the Senate's OK. These legal pros also differ in opinion on whether a recent Supreme Court ruling gives President Trump the ability to create a GOP-only FCC.

There's been an empty seat at the FCC since June 30, 2024. The Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. has just nominated an individual from North Carolina to fill it, yielding congratulations from Chairman Brendan Carr and Democratic Commissioner Anna Gómez.

The Atlanta-headquartered company's second quarter 2026 results were released shortly after 6am Eastern on Friday, and Gray is "particularly pleased with political advertising." It not only "significantly exceeded" its Q2 guidance but is trending ahead of 2022 and 2024 year-to-date levels. 

Just days after the company's CEO confirmed that nearly 270 individuals would be losing their jobs as part of a "refounding" effort, The E.W. Scripps Co. late Thursday released a Q2 earnings report that is wholly effected by a massive $1.14 billon non-cash impairment charge and primarily linked to a nearly $50 million decline in operating revenue.

The Chief U.S. District Judge overseeing the antitrust case lobbed against Nexstar and TEGNA for their regulatorily-approved merger — which he effectively blocked with a restraining order forcing a "hold separate" situation — has ruled that TEGNA's Board of Directors cannot be comprised of Nexstar C-Suite leaders.

It was a fiscal Q1 of 2027 full of milestones, including a"20/20 True Crime" channel on its TuneIn audio streaming app in partnership with ABC News; and the July 27 closing of its purchase of Adult Hits CHUP "UP 97.7" in Calgary. Of those positives for Stingray Group Inc., the purchase of TuneIn may be its strongest.

Hey, Jonas Brothers fans — the iHeartMedia podcast is one of six titles that will soon be distributed on Disney+ and Hulu, thanks to a freshly inked deal between the Walt Disney Co. and the nation's largest audio content creator and distributor.

Connoisseur Media has won FCC approval to maintain up to 100% indirect foreign ownership of its broadcast radio licenses in a structure that would place majority equity in the hands of Cayman Islands-registered entities while CEO Jeff Warshaw retains full voting control.

He spent 31 years leading influential R&B radio station KBLX-FM in San Francisco, championing the "Quiet Storm" sound that paved the way for softer, jazzier sounds on U.S. radio across the 1980s and 1990s. Now, many in Radio are mourning the loss of Harvey Stone.

How did the company's Radio stations perform, as CEO Bill Wilson has stated it is Townsquare Media's digital revenue streams that are its growth engines? Radio is now the No. 2 dollar generator for Townsquare, which swung to a net loss due to a large non-cash impairment charge it opted to take against its broadcast properties.

The licensee of a Milwaukee radio station since 1972 which is poised to become the latest property in the Civic Media stable — along with a 61-year-old newspaper serving the Black community of Milwaukee — has entered into a Consent Decree with the FCC's Media Bureau to resolve a transfer of control violation in November 2024.

While regional players such as Sweet James are omnipresent in some locales, Morgan & Morgan has taken an Orlando-founded entity and crafted it into a coast-to-coast offering. Spot TV has only further cemented its dominance, as seen in the latest Media Monitors report for Spot Television.

As Montreal-based Mirko Bibic, President/CEO of Bell Media parent BCE and Bell Canada, sees it, the company's Q2 2026 results more than met the company's expectations. In particular, the Bell Media digital strategy "continues to pay off" while FIFA World Cup rights at the CTV network brought advertisers in droves.

The University of Florida's commercial radio stations are getting a new sales partner: the publicly traded licensee led by Chris Forgy. The company will take over advertising for the Gainesville AM/FM pair in September in an arrangement that also makes Saga Communications a partner in training the school's journalism students.

AI is transforming the content search and discovery experience, but an ungrounded large language model (LLM) can only answer based on its training data. This, says Gracenote, limits its ability to stay current. In the world of TV, this limitation can have a negative impact on the user experience.

For years, audio advertising — broadcast radio, streaming audio and podcast alike — carried the same quiet problem. Buyers loved the format and they loved the audiences, but what they could not prove was reach. That is starting to change, and the whole category is better for it.