the HOT List

The head of Davis Broadcasting Inc. has personally written to those in favor of a resolution that would prevent the levying of any new performance royalty payments on Radio. While the biggest piece of legislation on Capitol Hill designed to do this is largely dead, recording industry advocacy group musicFIRST on Monday will seek to resuscitate it.

With just 24 days to go before the Sales and Management Television Exchange was to begin ahead of the NAB Show in Las Vegas, the organization has called off the conference. The decision comes following participation pullouts from Brainstorm, Ross Video, Panasonic and Canon.

Comscore has been working hard to offer new solutions media and marketing professionals could trust. On Wednesday, the media consumer data and analytics company revealed that it has "invented" what it calls "the next generation of personification methodology created to bring person-level measurement to its video products."

The NAB, MMTC, and NABOB are demanding a stay of the FCC's order mandating disclosures for foreign government-sponsored programming. Furthermore, they don't want the Commission to move forward with the order until the D.C. Federal Appeals Court has its say.

Norman Shapiro's Weigel Broadcasting has just signed off on the purchase of three over-the-air broadcast television facilities serving the nation's second-largest television market. The seller: An entity that among its properties were low-powered TV stations using VHF Channel 6 to serve radio listeners with audio at 87.7 MHz.

Weigel Broadcasting is expanding into the National Capital Region by acquiring a low-power TV facility based in the county seat of Shenandoah County, Va., nearly 100 miles from the White House.

Streamline Publishing, founded in 1986 with the creation of radio industry sales and management trade publication Radio Ink and today a diversified publisher of print and digital titles focused on the art and media industries, has elevated Deborah Parenti to the role of President of the Radio, TV & Podcasting Division.

The NAB is offering comment on a FCC Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that focuses on a number of broadcast radio technical rules under consideration for elimination or adjustment. Elimination, you say? The NAB appreciates erasing or updating "unnecessary or outmoded regulations" and supports many of the proposals. But, it suggests the FCC proceed with caution.

On Thursday morning, the owner of broadcast TV stations, two digital multicast networks, a podcast network and Connected TV/OTT advertising platform Premion "updated" its share repurchasing plan, renewed in December 2020. How so? It is accelerating the repurchase of shares, and it is "driven by accelerated achievement" of TEGNA's leverage target.

Philip Falcone's re-emergence as the CEO of Sovryn Holdings, following his not-so-savory split with HC2 Holdings in 2020, has captured headlines across 2021. Under his leadership, HC2 was a buyer. Now, Sovryn is shaping up to be an acquisition player, too. Falcone has just signed off on paperwork that will bring him a Big Apple low-power TV property.

The FCC has quietly released its Fifth Report on the ownership of broadcast media stations in the U.S. The latest findings led Commissioner Geoffrey Starks to react. In his view, the data only strengthen the need for action on the "lack of progress" toward increasing the number of owners who are women and/or people of color.

The Media Bureau of the FCC wants to know just how accessible children's educational and informational programming is. The reaction from GOP members of the Commission, and perhaps Republicans in Congress, could be fiery. The Pai Commission largely ruled that such programming is widely available, nixing rules for commercial TV.

If it were up to the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters (NABOB), zero amendments should be made as part of the FCC’s 2018 Quadrennial Review of its broadcast ownership rules. This presents a direct challenge to positions taken by a group of nine radio broadcasting companies and the view of the NAB, setting up a possible intra-industry battle on a fiery issue.

No less than nine radio station licensees, along with a very well-known broker, have teamed up in offering joint comments that reiterates what many in the industry have desired for years: "modernization" of its cross-ownership rules.