the HOT List

A host of radio and television industry leaders, including Radio + Television Business Report Chairman Eric Rhoads, will appear as panelists for the daylong event, scheduled to take place at FCC Headquarters on Thursday, Nov. 21.

A regional sports network heavy on Mile High pro teams, owned by Stan Kroenke’s Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, has been absent from DirecTV, DISH Network and from Comcast since Sept. 1, with DirecTV dropping the RSN on August 29. Late Thursday, KSE and DirecTV inked a new deal.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said Thursday morning that the agency is "finalizing its next steps" on how to respond to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals' vacate and remand decision that nixes its media cross-ownership rule revision. The Court's decision is already impacting Cox Media Group.

Senior leadership appointments across ViacomCBS' revenue lines have been unveiled, and they're effective upon closing of the deal to combine CBS and Viacom. The company say the appointments will enable ViacomCBS "to drive strong, multifaceted opportunities with distributors, advertisers and other partners."

In previewing the last quarter of media earnings, respected Wall Street analyst Michael Nathanson used the term “freaking ugly” to describe the current state of the U.S. Pay TV market. "This quarter, we will need to find a new phrase that is even more negative to describe third quarter trends," he laments.

Did you know that the FCC has a rule that limits the amount of duplicative programming commonly-owned radio stations in a market can air? The current version of these rules dates to 1992. The Commission's latest "modernization" effort could see a modification -- or outright ax -- of these regulations.

On Oct. 17, a LPTV deal involving a station serving towns in east-central Vermont received some outsized attention. The buyer is one of the biggest TV station owners in the U.S. Now, the seller is dealing a full-power station serving Burlington, creating a duopoly.

Oregon Republican Greg Walden, Ranking Member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, will be leaving Capitol Hill come January 2021. In a video statement distributed Monday morning, he shared that he has declined to seek reelection, capping a 30-year career as a public servant.

A new ransomware attack has disrupted the operations of a group of radio stations serving a bucolic region of the Pacific Northwest some two hours to the east of Portland, Ore. The stations' owner said via Facebook the problems began Tuesday, and continued into Thursday afternoon.

The FCC has ruled that Charter Communications is subject to effective competition under the statutory local exchange carrier (LEC) test. As a result, local franchise authorities on the island of Kauai, in addition to 32 communities in Massachusetts, may not regulate basic-tier cable rates.

If there ever was a more straightforward argument as to why STELAR should be reauthorized, it was this: hundreds of thousands of consumers will lose access to network television programming. Why? Broadcasters are to blame, and they're flush with millions in cash thanks to the retrans fees they collect, claims a top AT&T executive.

"The World Series is on TV. I watched it last night," Sen. Jon Tester noted Wednesday during the Senate Commerce Committee's STELAR reauthorization hearing. But, at his Montana farm, the FOX station airing the games is "blacked out" on DirecTV. This set the stage for a lively debate on retrans consent failures.

One of the thorniest issues involving broadcast TV, the reauthorization of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act, was the main subject at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing held Wednesday on Capitol Hill. A Senate Commerce Committee hearing examining policy considerations for STELAR's continuation were front and center.

One day after the Third Circuit Court of Appeals squashed the FCC’s attempt to "modernize" its media cross-ownership rules, the Media Bureau approved Gray Television's request for a duopoly in South Dakota. This came 10 weeks after a DOJ OK. Even so, the two top Democrats on the House Energy & Commerce Committee are peeved at Ajit Pai.

Pro-MVPD lobbying group ACA Connects on Monday filed an ex parte letter in the FCC’s C-Band proceeding that outlines what it believes are "major deficiencies" of the satellite industry’s C-Band proposals, as embodied in the filings and public statements of the C-Band Alliance.