the HOT List

The big takeaway for the three-month period ending September 30? Ad revenues soared and enjoyed the fastest pace since the final stage of the post-COVID rebound in the first quarter of 2022. That said, broadcast media's performance was a bit different.

In one week, customers to Verizon Fios cable TV services in two cities where Cox Media Group owns stations could be left in the dark. That's because the TV stations' owner and the MVPD can't seem to be in agreement on terms for a new retransmission consent accord.

With The E.W. Scripps Co. under a hostile takeover attempt by Sinclair and Nexstar Media Group awaiting a regulatory nod for its industry-changing proposed merger with TEGNA, Gray Media is moving forward with an initiative that adjusts that media company's indebtedness, with repayment due in seven years.

Netflix, born out of a DVD-by-mail service, is acquiring Warner Bros. — including its film and television studios, the HBO Max platform in competition with Netflix, and the HBO cable TV network, from the David Zaslav-led Warner Bros. Discovery. Paramount had questioned the sale process' "fairness and accuracy."

It’s the creation of Jonathan Katz, who founded the former Katz Broadcasting some 15 years ago and sold it to Scripps Networks in December 2020. Free TV Networks, with over-the-air digital broadcast networks and "FAST" channels at its heard, will soon be a sibling to the newly renamed MS NOW.

All signs point to a thaw in the FCC’s local ownership rules, and to an acceleration of ATSC 3.0 adoption by TV station owners. Has all this generated excitement with brokers? “The most important headline from a broker's perspective really is the potential relaxation of the radio ownership rules,” says Greg Guy.

In one fell swoop, the FCC under Chairman Brendan Carr has done a little more than a "delete, delete, delete" as part of the agency's sweeping clean-up of inactive, "unnecessary" and "outdated" items that have been collecting dust over the past several years.

Urban One has announced robust early results from its debt restructuring plan. Some 92% of bondholders, representing $450 million in debt, submitted their notes before the December 1 early tender deadline as the company superserving African Americans advances a three-part refinancing strategy.

The Chief Legal Officer and head of Legal and Regulatory Affairs at the NAB has made it clear that any suggestions that retransmission consent is a relevant consideration when contemplating changes in the FCC's national television ownership rule are "unsound" and "wholly unmeritorious."

The man who has served as Senior VP of Media Operations at the broadcasting company that's parent to such stations as WUSA9 in Washington, D.C., and is poised to merge with Nexstar Media Group in 2026 — pending regulatory approval and a likely federal court challenge — has retired.

A roughly two-month battle that saw every broadcast and cable TV channel tied to TelevisaUnivision — including non-owned over-the-air Univision and UniMás affiliates — get pulled from virtual MVPD YouTube TV due to a bitter retransmission consent impasse has ended.

The E.W. Scripps Company's Board of Directors has responded to a $7 per share unsolicited merger offer from Sinclair Inc. by adopting a limited-duration shareholder rights plan, something it says will "ensure that all shareholders receive full value in connection with any proposal to acquire the company."

It was first shared in a blog post from Chairman Carr discussing the agenda for the FCC's December Open Meeting. Now, more details can be shared regarding a Report and Order that would see the Commission amend its rules "to provide regulatory certainty" for all classes of low-power TV broadcasters.

The nation's dominant Christian Contemporary Music (CCM) radio broadcasting company has expanded again — this time with a deal that gives them a pair of FM radio stations serving the Colorado River market of Yuma, Ariz.

Chris Ripley is aggressively moving forward with an unsolicited bid to acquire the E.W. Scripps Co. by offering to purchase all outstanding shares for $7 a piece. Pro-MVPD advocacy group ACA Connects bemoaned the plan, claiming it could negatively impact future retransmission fee negotiations.