the HOT List

Those are the words Netflix decided to use to describe its fiscal health across the three-month period ending June 30, as net income improved — as did net cash provided by operating activities. Is this the much-needed shot in the arm that not only Netflix, but every OTT-based video transmission service, desires? One analyst says no, and thinks Microsoft should buy Netflix in 2024 or 2025 should the White House gain a Republican President open to big mergers.

Do large podcast audiences translate to big ROI and a long tail of revenue generation? That's the key theme of the two-day How to Make REAL MONEY Podcasting virtual conference, presented by Streamline Publishing's Podcast Business Journal and Radio Ink, which kicked off Tuesday morning.

BIN: Black Information Network has a Windy City broadcast home. It quietly debuted on July 14 at 1pm Central, and it's thanks to an agreement between the nation's No. 1 owner of radio stations and Sima Birach.

In August 2019, he was named President/GM of KYW-3 and "The CW Philly" sibling WPSG-57 in Philadelphia. As of July 20, he'll now be serving as Senior VP and Regional Manager for the broadcasting division of the nation's biggest owner of broadcast television stations.

The Commission needs a new publication to refer to for determining market areas. A vote at the FCC's July Open Meeting will help to determine what that publication will be. For Nate Simington, the Republican FCC Commissioner made it clear that blindly selecting a Nielsen offering may not be in its best interests.

Respected Wall Street analyst house MoffettNathanson has completed its sale to SVB Securities, and is now a division of Silicon Valley Bank. As required as part of that transaction, MoffettNathanson is reinitiating coverage of the U.S. media and internet sector. There's just one caveat. It isn't offering coverage of nearly every broadcast radio or television company.

The NAB, Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC) and National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters (NABOB) have successfully convinced the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to vacate a FCC order mandating disclosures for foreign government-sponsored programming.

A Georgia lawyer has been fighting for nearly three years to get the FCC to return ownership of a low-power TV station in Philadelphia to the licensee that lost control of it in a matter a California federal appeals court judged as fraudulent. Despite that ruling, the former court-appointed receiver is still the licensee of the LPTV facility. Why? That's what attorney Jeffrey Timmons wants the Commission to explain to his client.

Glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, has claimed the life of the man who had served as News Director of the broadcast TV station with the highest rated local newscasts in the U.S. He spent six years at KTRK-13 in Houston before landing his dream job at its big sibling in the Big Apple — WABC-7 in New York.

Until now, KTLA-5 has been the dominant source of local news programming each weekday, with newscasts stretching from 4am through the noon hour. CBS News & Stations will soon challenge the Nexstar-owned station with eight hours of local news on one of its two L.A. television properties.

Both iHeartMedia and Audacy Corp. have witnessed a substantial decrease in the value of their respective publicly traded shares since mid-April. The next several weeks could be even more challenging for Radio's "towering two," by station and revenue count. Revenue worries persist — mainly due to recession fears that many believe will result in lower advertising dollars. Among those sharing this belief is Steven Cahall, the Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Wells Fargo. Cahall just downgraded both iHeartMedia and Audacy.

It's hardly Breaking News. In 2021, Nexstar Media Group was the top television broadcasting company by total revenue, BIA Advisory Services finds. But, there's a perhaps premature presage that's been computed by the firm that puts a new entity at No. 2. With the FCC scrutinizing the still pending deal and groups vocalizing their opposition to the transaction, is it too soon for Soo Kim to be heading the "second-largest group" in broadcast TV?

Get ready to start the month of August by gauging the performance of how every publicly traded radio and television company performed during the three-month period ending June 30. That's when Earnings Season officially hits its zenith for the broadcast media industry, and when Gray Television will release its Q2 2022 results.

What do the two biggest advocacy and lobbying groups on Capitol Hill, each representing the interests of broadcast media and the nation's small-market and independent MVPDs, have to say to the FCC about its proceeding examining the state of competition in the communications marketplace? Plenty, it turns out.

As the SBAs see it, "The increase in regulatory fees that broadcasters have been assessed for FY2022 almost equals the entire increase in the Commission’s budget over FY2021, yet there is no explanation in the FY2022 [Notice of Proposed Rulemaking] as to why."