the HOT List

As the clock struck midnight on Friday, December 17 in New York, all Disney-owned channels, including ESPN and local ABC stations, became unavailable on YouTube TV. A monthly price reduction from $64.99 to $49.99 for its customers went into effect. By Sunday evening, it was all over, with all Disney-related live channels and on-demand content back on the vMVPD.

It's been a busy week for Standard Media Index, with new data releases galore since Monday.  The latest info to come from SMI: Ad spend in November of 2021 grew 10% compared to the same time a year ago. The comparisons to 2019 are even rosier.

Everyone in the nation's second-largest market now has access to a trio of stations broadcasting in NEXTGEN TV, the ATSC 3.0-powered digital broadcast standard. Making it possible across the Southland: Nexstar Media Group and FOX Television Stations.

Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group has signed a purchase agreement that, pending FCC approval, gives it the FOX affiliate serving the Montgomery, Ala., DMA.

The audio content creation and distribution company that owns podcast companies Cadence13 and Pineapple Street and the eponymous streaming app formerly known as Radio.com received a much welcomed upgrade from a Wall Street financial house on Tuesday. The move from B Riley Financial helped Audacy Inc. shares climb by more than 5%, sending volume to more than double its daily average.

It took more than 26 years, but "CBS62" in Detroit is finally getting its own local newscasts. There will also be a "FAST" Channel for the Motor City to be added to the CBSN platform. While management is excited, the most recent launch of a major-market news department at a Big Four TV station, in Boston, was not met with immediate success.

When it comes to Wall Street wizards who have an active pulse on broadcast media, there are perhaps no two more-attuned analysts than Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson. Over the last several years, their MoffettNathanson has served as a leading voice of how media companies are performing and trending. Soon, their equity research firm will be a sibling to Silicon Valley Bank.

On November 28, every FOX Network station in the U.S. aired what appeared to be a 45-second promotional message that, in its first three seconds, features the Emergency Alert System (EAS) tone. The penalty could be severe for FOX as the FCC investigates the incident. How big could that fine get? Look at what Beasley Media Group may need to pay for its own EAS transgression.

An Executive Session of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation will not consider the nomination of Gigi Sohn for the fifth FCC Commissioner's seat during a December 15 executive session. What does this mean for the liberal Democrat assailed by key Senate Republicans for President Trump-era Tweets lambasting Fox News as "state-sponsored propaganda"?

A "deluge' of ads from expanded legalized sports betting and the return of midterm political ad spending in 2022 are expected to aid U.S. broadcasters’ rebound from the pandemic. That's the key conclusion from S&P Global Market Intelligence Senior Research Analyst Justin Nielson, who works in the Kagan arm. 

In what some may call a direct admonition of Elliot Evers' “CXR Radio Station Trust" and its lobbying efforts to the FCC conducted by respected communications attorney David Oxenford, the Chief of the Media Bureau has ordered the divestment of two FM radio stations in Florida to transpire no more than 60 days past the current deadline date of December 17.

"As we reach the end of 2021, advertising growth is showing much faster expansion than previously anticipated, driven primarily by growth in the U.S., U.K. and China." That's the highly optimistic conclusion of groupM's Brian Wieser. But, where do television and audio advertising measure up? He's crunched the numbers and for audio industry players, the future isn't so bright.

Despite vocal opposition from such Senate Republicans as Mitch McConnell and John Thune, the FCC has its first official woman to serve as its Chair. In a Roll Call vote convened by the full Senate at 11:30am Tuesday, Jessica Rosenworcel's nomination to remain a Member of the FCC — allowing her to remove the "acting" title from her business cards — was approved.

Once Modern Rock outpost WLIR-FM, and WDRE, a Class A FM with boosters in Queens and Brooklyn is being spun after 18 years of ownership by Univision Communications in a deal that involves Kalil & Co. Serving Spanish-speaking listeners will end for the facility. The bigger takeaway: the extreme valuation difference between the purchase price in 2003 and the sale price today.

Addressable advertising, if you will, at FM radio has just become that-much closer to reality, thanks to a test in the East Bay of the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose market. RBR+TVBR's got something to say about it, and this Observation reminds Radio that it is in the business of "broad"-casting. So why destroy it?