the HOT List

A path to closing its controversial and contested acquisition of Tribune Media has just gotten a bit clearer for Sinclair Broadcast Group. In an announcement made seconds after Tuesday's Closing Bell on Wall Street, Sinclair announced that it has agreed to sell a CW-affiliated station to Meredith Corp. Additionally, a trio of stations are going to Howard Stirk, two are going to shared services agreement partner Cunningham Media, and nine properties are going to Standard Media—an entity headed by a former Media General leader. Seven other stations are to be sold to a company to be announced.

With Sinclair Broadcast Group's intended acquisition of Tribune Media still cloudy, despite a report in the New York Post that Department of Justice approval would arrive by now, investors may have been a bit iced on extending their ownership of Sinclair stock. Could today's spin-offs send SBGI shares upward starting Wednesday? At the Closing Bell on Wall Street, shares of SBGI dipped again, and are at their lowest point since mid-September.

The pro-MVPD American Television Alliance (ATVA), which is an American Cable Association member, has filed reply comments with the FCC that addresses broadcaster oppositions to its previous petition for reconsideration of the FCC’s ATSC 3.0 Order. 

Officially a part of the Buffalo television market, Olean and nearby Bradford, Pa., comprise a market that stands on its own due to terrain and distance. Among the companies actively competing in Olean are Bruce Mittman and Jim Leven's Community Broadcasters and the Jeff Andrulonis-led Colonial Media + Entertainment. Mittman and Leven will now be positioning their Olean stations against a new competitor. 

Webster County Sheriff Roye Cole on Friday revealed the identity of the individual who was killed Thursday morning (4/19) as the television tower housing the transmitter for Ozarks Public Television's KOZK-21 in Springfield, Mo., located to the east of the metropolitan area in Fordland, Mo., crashed to the ground. It is the head of the Washington state-based subcontracted team hired to handle tower and transmitter needs associated with the FCC's post-spectrum auction repack process. 

For generations of sports fans, Gil Santos was "the voice of New England." His resume features 36 years as the radio play-by-play voice of the New England Patriots NFL club, and 38 years delivering sports reports at :15 and :45 past the hour on WBZ-AM 1030. Santos was also known for his play-by-play alongside Bob Cousy for the Boston Celtics NBA team, and for Boston College and Penn State football. He also lent his voice to the Boston Marathon. Santos died Thursday at the age of 80.

If you believe the New York Post, the Department of Justice is thisclose to approving Sinclair Broadcast Group's headline-making acquisition of Tribune Media. The tabloid reported late Wednesday that a DOJ stamp of approval is just days away, citing sources close to the matter.

An Allentown, Pa.-based media design and production company that's tied to a TV station that just collected $140,482,163 in the FCC's spectrum auction isn't fooling around when it comes to a sum of money it is owed by Cumulus Media. While the dollars this company wants for Cumulus are less than 1/10 of what it just scored in the incentive auction, Cumulus believes it owes nothing for the use of a tower and antenna system for two big FMs in this north-of-Philadelphia market.

Following months of speculation regarding the future of one of the FCC's longest-serving Commissioners, Mignon Clyburn today at the Commission's April Open Meeting revealed what her future will be. She's leaving the FCC, and today's meeting was her last as a Democratic member of the agency.

First-quarter 2018 earnings are due soon from some of the key video entertainment companies trading on Wall Street. In advance of these companies' earnings releases, Pivotal Research Group's Brian Wieser modified his investment house's financial models for Disney, Time Warner, FOX, CBS, Viacom and Discovery Communications. Here's what he believes is the "best positioned of the group." Put on your mouse ears for this one.

The Incentive Auction Task Force and the Media Bureau on Monday announced what many broadcast media companies hoped would have happened last week as their top executives gathered at the 2018 NAB Show in Las Vegas. The issuance of a further allocation of the TV Broadcaster Relocation Fund has been given the green-light by the FCC. So, just how much cash is going in to the reimbursement fund, and who is eligible for these funds?

The Asia Pacific nations will see a $3 billion increase in pay TV revenue between 2017 and 2023. Perhaps North America needs to take the lead of countries where Mandarin, Japanese, Vietnamese and Thai are commonly heard along with a tinged English used in Australia and New Zealand. North American pay TV revenue is about to fall off a cliff, new research finds.

Flights from nearby Miami International Airport aren't the only thing around here taking off. It appears upward of 150 people are also taking flight, for good, from Univision Communications.  It's the second, and deeper, round of job cuts at the Hispanic and millennial-focused company in eight weeks. The company explains it is part of its "multi-year transformation initiative."

If digital media is forecast to continue to beat the pants off of broadcast radio and TV for years to come, shouldn't Facebook and YouTube fork over some money to content producers like ... radio and TV stations? It's an interesting concept and one that's getting serious play in Australia. RBR+TVBR Editor-in-Chief Adam Jacobson shares his thoughts on the concept of "retransmission fee agreements" of the social kind in this exclusive commentary.