the HOT List

RBR+TVBR has confirmed that Entravision has parted ways with both full-time and part-time employees at its radio stations across every market in which it owns stations. Among those saying goodbye to the Hispanic-centric media company is the VP/Southeast Region for Entravision Solutions and the nighttime air personality at a Classic Rocker in El Paso.

To the south of Chicago in the village of Bourbonnais, Ill., is a group of four FM radio stations and a FM translator that's tied to a family-run broadcasting company. Now, an asset purchase agreement has been filed with the FCC that reflects a shift in ownership of these stations. For staff and vendors, there should be few if any differences in the operation of this cluster. For a Carmel-by-the-Sea, Calif.-based investor with a name familiar to radio industry veterans, there could be more flights to O'Hare or Midway in the near future. Also involved: The man who made KGO a legend.

What if there was a tool that could help broadcasters in possibly never getting names wrong again in subtitles? A British firm thinks it has the answer, and it will demonstrate its technology at the 2018 NAB Show in Las Vegas from April 8-12. 

HC2 Holdings in the last year has emerged as one of the most active buyers in broadcast media today. It's purchasing the Spanish-language Azteca América broadcast TV network, and keeps snagging low-power TV stations across the U.S. HC2 has now continued its big buying spree by adding a trio of LPTVs in the San Francisco Bay Area.

On Feb. 2, a put-and-call agreement giving Cumulus Media ownership of WKQX-FM “Q101” and WLUP-FM in Chicago was terminated. On Tuesday at 8:45pm Eastern, Cumulus reached a new deal that will give it Q101 after all. Even more, Cumulus will gain the intellectual property of the former WLUP-FM. We've got the deal price, and we also know there's "termination rights" that could still derail the transaction.

The owner of the CBS affiliate serving the state capital of Pennsylvania and its surrounding communities, which airs MyNetwork TV programming on this station's DT-2 subchannel, has just been granted a waiver request by the FCC's Media Bureau. The request puts a stamp of approval on a waiver of the "significantly viewed exception to the network non-duplication and syndicated exclusivity rules." The loser in this battle is CBS Corp. The winner is Sinclair Broadcast Group.  

Just how tepid was the transactions landscape for broadcast media in the first quarter of 2018? We just bore witness to the worst quarterly deal volume since Q4 2016, and experienced one of the slowest quarters in the past four years.

The CEO of Beasley Media Group has been selected to co-chair Forecast 2019 — the radio industry’s most respected and influential annual financial conference. A partner co-chair will be announced shortly for the event, which will again bring broadcast executives, investors, and advertisers together to discuss the trends, influences, and policies that will shape radio in the coming year.

There have been 115 filings in the last 30 days to the FCC from everyday television viewers in a matter involving Gray Television. It involves one of its CBS affiliates, and it's presently not "on satellite" in an area of the Bluegrass State that very much wants it on their local channel lineup.

Educational Media Foundation is snapping up another radio station, just days after announcing that it is entering a big college town in the Lone Star State. In a deal consummated March 26 and filed with the FCC on Monday, EMF is grabbing a Class C2 facility serving the Outer Banks of North Carolina. But, this deal is hardly a surprise — one of its two noncomm Contemporary Christian Music networks has been on this facility since Christmas Eve 2015.

In an ex parte letter submitted to the FCC on Monday (3/26), the NAB urged the Commission to retain its existing standards designed to increase the level of woman-owned and multicultural broadcasting companies in operation across the U.S. Specifically, race-based and/or gender-based eligibility standards should not be considered, the NAB notes.

As of Dec. 31, 2017, Cumulus Media employed 5,213 people — 3,515 of whom were employed full time. While some of these individuals may have some internal anxiety regarding the company's current Chapter 11 reorganization plans, which have received some objections as part of an "anticipated" process, it is business as usual across the company's radio stations. That said, Cumulus' annual 10-K filing with the SEC outlines several "risks" that the company faces in fiscal 2018. Among these concerns is that Cumulus' emergence from Chapter 11 of the U.S. bankruptcy code "is not assured."

The Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of Cumulus Media on Wednesday filed an objection to the confirmation of the first amended joint plan of reorganization submitted by the nation's No. 2 radio broadcasting company to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York. An ad hoc Cross-Holder Committee quickly followed suit. Cumulus Media responded by sending a statement to the media explaining that the twin objections "were anticipated."

Cumulus Media is placing four stations in a newly formed trust to be overseen by the MVP Capital broker, who is also overseeing Entercom's divestitures and a trust created 11 years ago for Citadel Broadcasting. The new Cumulus divestments are directly tied to its Chapter 11 reorganization petition in a New York federal bankruptcy court.