the HOT List

David Bozell has continued the Media Research Center's mission of serving as "a stronghold against misinformation, media bias, and distortion, promoting a culture of fairness, accuracy, and accountability" by petitioning the FCC to deny the early license renewals of ABC Owned Stations' eight properties. Here's why.

The founder and Chairman/CEO of Nexstar Media Group, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year as the nation's biggest single owner of broadcast TV stations, has snapped up nearly 12,500 Class A shares in the company. It's an investment of nearly $2 million, and comes at a high-profile time for Perry Sook.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the government's "halfhearted contention" that Fed board member Lisa Cook "in fact received due process" when purportedly fired by the president. At the same time, the Supreme Court reversed and remanded a case involving former FTC Commissioners — a warning for the FCC's Anna Gomez.

The Supreme Court's decision in "Trump v. Slaughter" upends some 90 years of precedent in how much leeway a president has in dismissing a Commissioner at a federal agency, including the FCC. One noted attorney doesn't believe the ruling will have an immediate impact on the Commission, however.

Upon completion of the transaction, Comcast shareholders will own shares in both Comcast and NBCUniversal, creating “two focused industry leaders, each with significant scale, strong financial profiles and distinct strategic opportunities.”

A public interest organization has been joined by a "group of concerned citizens" in filing a Petition to Deny the early license renewals of ABC Owned Stations' properties. To be clear, Media Action Center and Frequency Forward are not trying to block the stations' license renewals. Rather, they see the action as the lone way to gain standing.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has taken aim at a campaign from ABC designed to gain viewer support in its quest to maintain the "bona fide news program" equal time exemption for daytime chat program "The View."  As Carr sees it, "We're going to follow the facts and the law wherever they take us."

The annual Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity has been a regular epicenter of ad partnership pitches for iHeartMedia for the last several years, and this year is no exception. From C-Suite leaders to Questlove, Ryan Seacrest, Eva Longoria and Diplo, three days of activity have already been seen.

Four Democrats took the FCC's Media Bureau to federal court this week, arguing a March guidance document unlawfully extended discounted political advertising rates beyond what Congress authorized, potentially affecting how broadcast stations price political inventory.

As attorneys from Brooks Pierce and Cooley LLP representing all four network TV affiliate groups state, "Even if that subscriber leaves cable or satellite for a virtual MVPD provider, the broadcaster’s revenue suffers because of the below-market economics of the vMVPD opt-in paradigm." 

For decades, advertisers had to choose between TV's scale and digital's precision. Not anymore, say Viamedia and Hearst Television, as they have teamed to bring to market "true household-level addressability for broadcast television for the first time."

The Acting Chief of the FCC's Media Bureau has dismissed a Petition for Special Relief filed by "a number of former FCC officials" and a notable hopeful who requested the Commission “repeal its news distortion policy in full.” The reason is a simple one for Alex Sanjenis.

It's a direct result of ongoing litigation between DirecTV and state attorneys general and TEGNA and its owner, Nexstar Media Group, designed to prevent Nexstar from fully merging TEGNA's assets with its own: CEO Patrick Paolini has promoted four individuals to TEGNA's newly refreshed executive leadership team.

In a move designed to "modernize and future-proof" content distribution and contribution across more than 330 member stations, PBS has signed an agreement with LTN making the IP-based video transport and network firm its in-the-cloud video provider.

Danlel Suhr and the Center for American Rights are single-handedly responsible for investigations into "news distortion" and a review of whether or not long-running ABC roundtable talk show "The View" is a bona fide news program. CAR has told the Carr Commission it is clearly not news.