Radio & Television Business Report

With no commentary or publicly released explanation, the Supreme Court of the United States on Monday denied the request of Nexstar Media Group to review a Second Circuit ruling that reversed an antitrust win — one that is wholly tied to the thorny issue of retransmission consent negotiations.

On November 12, NBCUniversal Local Chairman Valari Staab will be honored with the 2026 RBR+TVBR Lifetime Leadership Award. Now, the Forecast conference presentation of this award will have deeper meaning — her post-retirement successor has been named, starting the clock on Staab's departure date.

Forecast 2027 is closed to the press — including our own journalists. The sessions won’t be posted to YouTube. You won’t even find these lessons in our headlines e-mail the next morning. If you’re thinking you’ll catch it later for free, you won’t. The only way to hear these conversations is to invest in yourself. Be in the room.

The FCC on August 6 voted to repeal its 39% national TV ownership reach cap, replacing it with a granular, case-by-case review. The Report and Order detailing the decision was not released until Thursday, and was quietly posted on the Commission website along with statements from Chairman Carr, Olivia Trusty and Anna Gómez.

Annual employment reports will soon be gone from the FCC’s rulebook. The Media Bureau ordered the removal of the requirement that stations report workforce race, ethnicity, and gender data, bringing federal regulations in line with a Fifth Circuit decision.

Michael Bergner of Bergner & Co. was the exclusive broker on the transaction, first announced on July 9, which sees a 44kw Class B FM serving much of the San Francisco DMA ending up in the hands of America's largest purveyor of Christian Contemporary Music. The station's seller used the legal services of Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP.

A Class D AM radio station and its companion FM translator serving a Minnesota city southwest of St. Cloud will soon be wholly owned by the widow of her husband and business partner who held 50% interest in the station's controlling limited liability company. It's the result of his untimely death in September.

It's a collegiate athletic conference whose members today include public universities across the west coast of the U.S.  Now, fans of this conference's basketball teams — both men's and women's — and its football teams' crowning event can tune to audio coverage across affiliate stations produced and marketed by Compass Media Networks.

It holds a Construction Permit for an 1,100-watt FM signal from a tower site in Carroll Township, Pa., allowing it to serve Pennsylvania's state capital once it returns from a temporary silence under FCC authority. When that happens, the owner of this facility is expected to be Seven Mountains Media.

When Connoisseur Media agreed to merge with Alpha Media, it was understood that several Alpha properties deemed non-essential to the company led by Jeff Warshaw would be sold. Add a Class A facility serving a portion of Western Maryland and neighboring Waynesboro, Pa., to that divestment list.

It took roughly two months to pass muster with the FCC and reach a successful closing date. Now, K-LOVE Inc. is the owner of a pair of big-signal FM radio stations sold by Beasley Media Group, with a call sign change seen in Las Vegas.

To detractors including the TVB, a March 30 Public Notice outlining "lowest unit rate" rules wasn't a "reminder" but served as a policy change, suddenly allowing political action committees to benefit from the LUR rules. Now, both supporters and opponents can share their views on the matter with the Commission.

As Republican FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty sees it, her August 6 decision to vote to repeal the 39% national TV audience reach limit for broadcast television station licensees "recognizes that the media marketplace has changed dramatically, while many of our rules have not."

One brand is known for its anti-allergy products including NyQuil. The other brand is a streaming video platform tied to the largest Spanish-language content creator in the world. While each sounds alike, there's very little Vicks and ViX have in common. Commitment to national TV spots is one of them.

Advertising Week New York kicks off Monday, and for the second consecutive year SiriusXM Media is hosting an event that it says will explore "the growing power and influence of audio across media, culture and advertising."

Third quarter layoff plans totaled 129,591, down 43% from the 226,242 layoff plans in Q2 2026, and down 36% from the 202,118 layoff plans announced in the same quarter of last year. That's the latest jobs look courtesy of Chicago-based Challenger Gray & Christmas.