the HOT List

The worst-kept secret in the global broadcasting business was formally revealed on Thursday morning before the Opening Bell on Wall Street and in midday trading on the FTSE in London. The Walt Disney Company and Twenty-First Century Fox have entered into a definitive agreement for Disney to acquire 21st Century Fox, including the Twentieth Century Fox Film and Television studios, along with cable and international TV businesses, for approximately $52.4 billion in stock -- and a total value of $66.1 billion. What does this mean for FOX O&Os and the U.S. broadcast TV industry? 

Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas, TV broadcasters: bullies that use their market power to force small and medium-sized cable operators into lopsided deals that hurt consumers. That's how American Cable Association members view the owners of broadcast TV stations, according to a new survey on "retransmission consent negotiations with corporate broadcasters" conducted by the Pittsburgh-based lobbying group. Of course, there are two sides to every story, and we've got an RBR+TVBR Observation on this hot topic.

Wall Street wordsmith and respected financial analyst Brian Wieser has just concluded a review of weekly national TV viewing trends for both news and sports based upon live+same-day viewing data made available on Tuesday. Why? The two genres together accounted for 22% of all national TV viewing last year, and are "the key programming genres for which this quickly available data is useful for purposes of analysis, certainly when compared with dramas and comedies," he notes. What does this mean for your broadcast stations?

Investors reacted negatively to a SEC filing made Monday by iHeartMedia that its iHeartCommunications subsidiary is “currently exploring a possible private capital-raising transaction.” At the Closing Bell on Wall Street Tuesday, the company's publicly traded shares were off 16.7%.

Pandora has a new CMO. This individual is charging with bringing "Pandora’s next chapter to life through cutting-edge digital, social and mobile marketing initiatives." She'll also be tasked with leading consumer brand strategy, market positioning, performance-based and partnership marketing for the company. She arrives after a stint overseeing marketing and digital efforts for Banana Republic.

Live broadcast and events will generate over $545 billion in direct revenues in 2018. That's a key takeaway from the 17th edition of the "Technology, Media & Telecommunications Predictions” report from Deloitte, released today. The report also looks at the "adlergic" audience, and how this may impact -- if at all -- digital media and ad revenue. Meanwhile, young adult TV viewing is predicted to decline yet again.

Nearly four years after succeeding co-founder David Honig as President/CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC), Kim Keenan has resigned from her post. Keenan has decided "to pursue other professional opportunities"; she did not elaborate on the reason for her exit. An interim leader has already been named.

The nation's largest radio broadcasting company, iHeartMedia, revealed Monday in a SEC filing that its iHeartCommunications subsidiary is "currently exploring a possible private capital-raising transaction." From the looks of this transaction, it appears that the company is moving forward with plans to amend or fully agree to a counter proposal presented by key lenders that could give them all of iHeart's equity in Clear Channel Outdoor and a significant stake in iHeart.

The FCC on Monday flipped the switch on an online dashboard designed to provide the public with more information on the agency’s work. Now available at FCC.gov, the resource aims to give consumers better access to reports and graphics on FCC workloads, pending actions, and other accountability matrices—and more easily access Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) materials. 

For those who questioned whether or not Nielsen Audio would lose out on nearly $6.7 million its owed by Cumulus Media, think again. The nation's dominant audience measurement company and the nation's No. 2 radio broadcasting company by number of stations have just reached a deal on a multi-year extension for radio ratings services.

Make it nine months and counting for those twin iHeartMedia offers to amend its existing term loans and for a debt securities swap. The nation's No. 1 radio broadcasting company announced, yet again, an extension of its exchange offers and consent solicitations. The offers were originally set to expire on April 7. How many more extensions will it take?

There's an Oregon radio signal that not only covers much of Eugene and Springfield, but also Corvallis and Albany, and the state capital of Salem. This station even reaches the coastal communities of Newport and Lincoln City, and on good days comes in just fine from the top of the OHSU Tram in Southwest Portland. It could be yours, for the right price.

The FCC’s decision to abolish the main studio rule is to be effective 30 days after the publication of the decision in the Federal Register. That publication is tentatively scheduled, according to Federal Register documents reviewed by noted D.C. communications attorney David Oxenford, for Friday, Dec. 8. Here's what to expect come Jan. 7, 2018, according to Oxenford.

The Media Rating Council (MRC) has released new standards for digital audience-based measurement — a 69-page document that offers much detail as to how it arrived at its new standards. While the new standards build on the MRC’s prior work on viewable impression measurement and invalid traffic filtration requirements, they spell out recommended practices for the collection and processing of information used in the assignment of audience characteristics to impression-level data. The concept of Duration Weighting for video ads is also now included in the MRC's standards.

Michael Dell's OTA Broadcasting made a fortune by participating in the FCC's incentive auction. In particular, his Fairfax, Va.-based operation earned exactly $125,932,367 for giving up the spectrum of the full-power UHF station bringing Ion Life programming to southern New England. Now, OTA's Channel-Sharing Agreement struck to ensure the network's continued over-the-air availability is being traded ... to Ion Media Networks.