the HOT List

What NFL team FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks supports may not be widely known, but his presence in Miami on Monday had little to do with Super Bowl LIV. He was at the Mandarin Oriental, where he addressed the NAB Joint Board of Directors. He delivered an address on what it means for broadcasters to adequately serve the public interest in the 21st Century.

It's been no secret that Miami-based Spanish Broadcasting System (SBS) has been looking to pare property and assets it believes are not absolutely necessary to retain anymore. This explains why it is parting ways with a full-power TV station in Houston after nearly nine years of ownership. What's perhaps more noteworthy is who the buyer is.

The FCC's Enforcement Bureau revealed on Tuesday that it has been conducting an investigation into whether Salem Media Group violated the FCC's live broadcasting rule. It appears that Salem was involved in a violation of the Commission's regulations, as the company has agreed to a consent decree.

Until Monday, a legal battle that started in August 2018 against the former Tribune Media and Sinclair Broadcast Group was still on in America's First State. Now, it has concluded, thanks to a settlement that gives Tribune's new owner -- Nexstar Media Group -- cash and another TV station. The resolution also brings Nexstar the Rio Grande Valley's CBS affiliation.

In July 2019, a legal fight launched by America's four major broadcast television networks sought a final ruling on whether or not Locast's nonprofit IPTV model was permissible. Two months later, the service -- Locast -- countersued. Now, Locast is drawing attention for pushing ahead with the streaming of local broadcast TV channels in an Iowa market.

Two weeks ago, word first surfaced about major job losses at iHeartMedia. At the same, three senior programmers were promoted to Division EVPs for iHeartRadio’s National Programming Group, including a six-year Regional SVP/Programming for iHeartMedia’s Allentown/Harrisburg Region. Now, iHeartMedia has solidified its Pennsylvania leadership.

Thanks to its just-struck sale by Entravision Communications, a Las Vegas TV station is poised to drop Spanish-language programming in favor of English-language second-run crime dramas and a smattering of original shows and movies, delivered by the West Palm Beach-headquartered company led by Brandon Burgess. It ends three years of Entravision ownership.

In an announcement distributed just after the Jan. 9 Closing Bell on Wall Street, Cumulus Media revealed that EVP/CFO John Abbot will exit the company following the distribution of its Q4 and full-year 2019 results. Since then, the radio broadcasting company's stock has been in a free-fall. There's no word of yet as to who will succeed Abbot.

After more than two years, the fight is over for Norman Shapiro's Weigel Broadcasting. An entity seeking a Commission denial of a license transfer to the Chicago-based operator of digital multicast TV networks including MeTV has failed in its attempts to prevent Weigel from completing its acquisition of a Class A TV station that serves one of America's biggest markets.

Hispanic media company Entravision is struggling: Its radio stations are underperformers, its Headway digital arm is exposed to a ravaged Argentine Peso, and its TV stations aren't lighting up the world, either. Investors have reacted on Wall Street, with EVC heading to a fresh five-year low on Thursday.

John Fullam recently announced his retirement as SVP/Market Manager for Entercom's five-brand, four-station Denver-Boulder radio group. We now know who is succeeding Fullam in the role.

A man PBS calls "a giant in journalism known for his tenacity and dedication to simply delivering the news" died peacefully in his sleep at home on Thursday, at the age of 85. Within hours, former colleagues, peers, TV journalists and Americans were reacting to the loss of NewsHour co-founder Jim Lehrer.

The final full day of NATPE Miami action saw Nexstar Media Group founder and CEO Perry Sook receive a newly established leadership award named in memory of NATPE's founder. Sook spoke later in the day as part of a Wednesday afternoon Station Group Summit, ahead of a session on media cross-measurement advancements presented by Nielsen.

Unbeknownst to some, one of the Cox Media Group assets that didn't get spun into a new entity controlled by Apollo Global Management is Videa -- the provider of a live, supply-side marketplace for broadcast TV station inventory. It's now under Cox Enterprises control, and that's given it a fresh opportunity to expand its relationships with television station owners across the U.S.

While the radio industry has been vociferous in its negative reaction to widespread job cuts in the programming and on-air realms at the nation's No. 1 owner of AM and FM stations, Wall Street has sung a different tune. The slicing of employee salary and benefits at a company with $5.75 billion in debt is perhaps a good thing. As such, iHeart stock is at a post-bankruptcy high.