the HOT List

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.

"Media channel buyer bias must end." "Junior buyers need to be better educated." Sound bytes from a meeting with Entercom President/CEO David Field? Nope. That's what top radio industry executives are moaning about in Australia, based on a study conducted in Great Britain.

Excluding the Winter Olympic Games from South Korea, the total U.S. national ad market soared by 8% in February 2018. This growth was driven by "strong gains" in National Television, Digital and Radio, just-released Standard Media Index data indicate.

As part of its petition in a New York federal bankruptcy court to start anew under Chapter 11 protection, Cumulus Media has submitted a "First Amended Joint Plan of Reorganization" that it and its "debtor affiliates" have signed off on. On Friday, U.S. Bank — as indenture trustee — spoke up. It filed a five-page objection to the plan.

Has iHeartMedia staged a surreptitious "fraudulent and otherwise wrongful" plan to shrink the dollars they believe are owed to them? That what the company's legacy noteholders claim is the biggest problem with the media company's Chapter 11 restructuring plan it has submitted to a Texas bankruptcy court, and on Wednesday moved forward with an adversary proceeding in the case.

In a unanimous 5-0 vote, the FCC on Thursday adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that asks whether the Commission should streamline the process for reauthorizing television satellite stations when they are assigned or transferred in combination with their previously approved parent station.

According to a just-released forecast from the ad industry research arm of IPG Mediabrands, digital and out-of-home advertising — including the ads cinema-goers see before the previews start — are the only media types forecast to grow ad sales in 2018. What could this mean for radio and TV broadcasters across the U.S. in an election year that also included the Winter Olympics? Additionally, what did MAGNA have to say about iHeartMedia and Cumulus impacting ad dollar growth?