the HOT List

It's been a tough 30 days for Entravision Communications. One week ago the company was making job cuts at its radio and TV stations. It's been a month since EVC shares closed above $5.05 a share. Now, it appears that a newly announced partnership between ad fraud protection and data intelligence firm Pixalate and an Entravision digital subsidiary did little to energize investors.

A Cumulus Media-owned Alternative operation mainly heard in one of the nation's largest markets received a bit of a jolt just two days before Friday the 13th. The FM translator Cumulus uses to bring this station, based on an HD2 signal, to the masses was to sign off at midnight. A tweet referred to the situation as "lame as heck news." Blame the FCC: It acted on an interference complaint submitted by the owners of a Class A on the same signal, some 55 miles to the west.

From digital disruption to concerns about the “connected car,” radio industry leaders continue to express concern over where AM and FM will be in the not-so-distant future. How they are reacting was the focus of a standing-room only session late Wednesday at the 2018 NAB Show in Las Vegas. Moderated by Fred Jacobs, President of Jacobs Media, the talk ranged from content to monetization.

In an emotional 14-minute acceptance speech in which she was "just so, so honored to be here this morning," Cathy Hughes -- the founder and chairperson of the publicly traded company now known as Urban One -- graciously accepted the 2018 Lowry Mays Excellence in Broadcasting Award from the Broadcasters Foundation of America.

Raising money for local charities. Partnering with the Make-A-Wish Foundation to give a priceless moment to a sick child. Those are the "ordinary things that have an extraordinary impact," and for FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, "it’s this kind of community service that makes it a joy to visit broadcasters whenever I can." With that, the GOP-affiliated head of the Commission reinforced his belief that a modernization of the agency's rules is "the only way to allow broadcasters to thrive." He also revealed that translator interference can be tackled through a proposed update of the FCC's rules

In the South Texas city of Corpus Christi, viewers who wish to tune to ABC network programming go to KIII-3, a station currently owned by TEGNA. The company formerly known as Gannett took ownership of KIII in July 2014. Now, the company that sold KIII to TEGNA appears to be in a bit of a bind. And, it is the prior owner before that who is alleging a default on the payment of a promissory note valued at $7 million.

For today’s radio sales professional, there are myriad challenges. From the aggressive crosstown cluster to the big TV station to encroaching local digital media entities, one may feel exasperated in how to maintain their current client lists while looking for growth. This was the crux of a vibrant conversation on the 2018 NAB Show panel “Radio: from the Streets and the C-Suite,” conducted Tuesday morning by RAB President/CEO Erica Farber. Featured panelists included representatives from Univision Radio, Beasley Media Group, Cox Media Group and Townsquare Media.

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.