the HOT List

It's official: An affiliate of Soo Kim-led Standard General LP has received the approval of TEGNA shareholders to move forward with its acquisition of the broadcast TV station owner. 

On April 13, Spanish Broadcasting System (SBS) became the last of just about any publicly traded company to share its fourth quarter 2021 results. Now, it's moving forward with the release of its first quarter 2022 fiscal report card.

What are the trends for radio's listeners, creators and advertisers, all playing their part in "revolutionizing" audio? Audacy Corp. has its view, and the second installment of its twice-yearly State of Audio e-book explores the "disruptors."

A public safety community initiative is developing a new statewide paging system for first responders in North Carolina using Next Gen TV. The new system, leaders say, could be replicated across the nation to replace the conventional 70-year-old paging technology still widely in use.

The "Friends of WRR" group warned Dallas-Fort Worth listeners of the 100-year-old Classical radio station some 10 months ago that its future was uncertain. Now, management of the station is poised to be handed to the licensee in control of the market's leading PBS Member station, its key NPR Member station, and a Adult Alternative noncomm created in 2009.

"After a thorough effort aimed at exploring whether a higher and better offer for Nielsen could be obtained," Nielsen's Board "confirmed its view" that an acquisition proposal from a consortium led by an affiliate of Elliott Investment Management "represents an attractive outcome" for its shareholders "by providing a cash purchase at a substantial premium."

The CBS affiliate for the Weston/Clarksburg/Fairmont, W. Va., is getting an upgraded facility, some nine weeks after the station's owner filed a Petition for Rulemaking with the FCC seeking its OK for the shift. It's another VHF-to-UHF victory for Gray Television.

Wall Street is withering, with Starbucks shares sliding to under $70 per share despite it going ex-dividend on Thursday. Could this present opportunity for investors to get in while the valuations are beneficial to a company such as Cumulus Media? That's what Zacks Equity Research wonders.

In the Kansas city of Wichita, Gray Television owns the market's CBS affiliate, KWCH-12, and the CW Network affiliate, KSCW-33. Until now, KSCW has used VHF channel 12 for its digital signal. This led Gray to ask the FCC if it could move KSCW to a UHF channel, thus improving market coverage. The Media Bureau, on delegated authority, just said yes.

The Walt Disney Co. at Wednesday's Closing Bell on Wall Street released its fiscal Q2 2022 financial report. And, while revenue climbed by 23%, net income and Earnings Per Share for its continuing operations sank by 48%. Don't look to the theme parks for reasons as to why this transpired.

Townsquare Media has been teasing the opening of a West Coast office for its Townsquare Interactive digital marketing unit for months. An opening of this office is on track for the "back half of this year," CEO Bill Wilson says. But, it's not located in the Golden State, which one analyst assumed was where Townsquare would plant stakes. Rather, it's in the Valley of the Sun.

For Nexstar Media Group, growth is the story it can present to both analysts and investors as it delivered Q1 2022 net revenue and net income that surpassed consensus estimates. How good was the first quarter for the company helmed by founder Perry Sook? 

A big media company in Puerto Rico is getting two of Puerto Rico's biggest radio networks, along with some cash, in exchange of a streaming platform that could further bolster its recently launched ViX product across the U.S. and Latin America. Meanwhile, that Boricua media company getting the radio assets is going private.

When will Audacy shift from a quarterly net loss to net income? That's a question investors and analysts may be asking, as the audio content creator and distributor that owns the Pineapple Street and Cadence13 podcast entities and has a significant investment in sports gaming through BetLQ greatly improved its fiscal health in Q1 2022. But, the company still came out in the negative.

While it is still early in the second quarter for the local media arm of The E.W. Scripps Co., the company's President of Local media has a clear sense of where things will end up come June 30. "Right now, we're looking to be about flattish compared to a year ago," he said on the company's Q1 2022 earnings call.