the HOT List

The deputy solicitor general for West Virginia's Attorney General has been selected as the Commission's top legal advisor. The move comes as acting General Counsel Nick Degani transitions back to his role as senior counsel in the Office of Chairman Ajit Pai.

The House Energy & Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, chaired by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), will hold its second FCC Oversight hearing of the current Congress next Wednesday. This will be the first Oversight Hearing for the full Commission, however, and it will begin at 2pm Eastern in the Rayburn House Office Building.

What is the relative contribution that a campaign’s creative and media factors might have on sales? That's the key question recently put to the test by Nielsen Catalina Solutions (NCS) as part of a report that quantifies the impact of advertising. NCS looked at nearly 500 CPG campaigns that ran in 2016 and in Q1 of 2017 on linear and addressable television, online digital and video, mobile, magazines and radio. It offered five key takeaways, the biggest perhaps being the following conclusion: For large cross media campaigns, reach still comes primarily from television.

Brian and Kevin Lilly are widely known for their involvement with Lilly Broadcasting — a company recently making headlines for its still-unresolved impasse over a new retransmission fee accord with DISH Network. They are now making headlines for agreeing to acquire a UHF TV station in Michigan's Upper Peninsula that presently serves as a MeTV Network affiliate, while offering the digital multicast This TV network on its DT2 channel and the Antenna TV network on its DT3 signal.

One of the nation's largest media companies serving Hispanic consumers has added a UHF property set to shift channels as part of the FCC's post-Incentive Auction repack process. It's in Texas' state capital, where this company enjoys already owns two TV stations — along with a pair of FMs. Kalil & Co. served as the exclusive broker in this transaction.

Add Univision Communications to the list of broadcast media companies who have fallen victim to retransmission fee negotiations gone bad with a video services provider in 2017. What's the issue? A Verizon statement issued late Monday claims that Univision is proposing an increase “of more than double what they charge for access to their channels today.”

In a significant about-face that could, at least for now, resolve a bitter three-year dispute with Comcast Corp., Burbank-based Liberman Broadcasting has elected for must-carry status for its three Estrella TV stations in the Houston, Denver, and Salt Lake City DMAs. The move means the Spanish-language broadcast network will be back on Comcast systems in the three markets come Jan. 1 after three difficult years for the broadcast media company.

A bitter squabble over a new retransmission fee agreement that saw two television stations owned by Dispatch Broadcast Group — the Columbus, Ohio-based operation run by the Wolfe family since 1929 — get blacked out on AT&T's DirecTV and U-Verse lineups in Ohio's capital city and in Indiana's biggest market has finally ended.

Investors seem pleased that Viacom pay-TV channels such as Nickelodeon, BET, Comedy Central and MTV won't be yanked from Charter Communications Spectrum systems across the U.S. The company's stock finished Monday in positive territory, after losing ground in midday trading.

That's the assessment from Barton Crockett, a senior analyst at FBR Capital Markets & Co. In an appearance Friday (10/13) on CNBC's Power Lunch, Crockett pointed his attention at the Mouse House -- suggesting its the company that can put a brighter spotlight on broadcast media. He also believes M&A activity could help the sector, and believes there is one company that looks great for an internet giant's acquisition. It's the company that is spinning off its radio stations to Entercom Communications.

From broadcast TV companies seeking to bring their video programming to hand-held devices to radio broadcasting companies pushing for FM chip activation across all smartphones, sales trends for cellular devices are vitally important for the roll-out and implementation of mobile-first plans designed to retain and capture consumers. That's why it should be highly noteworthy that, for the three months ending August 31, Samsung's U.S. sales lead over Apple has all but evaporated.

It's a good week to be a member of iHeartMedia's team of corporate counsel. On Thursday, the Delaware state Supreme Court declined to bring back a derivative claim from a disgruntled investor who argued that the directors of iHeart subsidiary Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings breached their duty by failing to request a repayment of $1 billion from iHeart. This affirms a November 2016 ruling against GAMCO.

Doug Ferber of DEFcom Advisors LLC and Erwin Krasnow of Garvey Schubert Barer have created a special podcast series exclusively for RBR+TVBR members based on a series of articles centered on the topic “Broadcast Deal Myths Debunked.” In this sixth podcast installment, Ferber and Krasnow discuss what happens behind the mic, and in the offices and hallways of a broadcast station. Is a station's culture "perishable"? It's a hot topic, and Krasnow has some answers you may want to know.

She's back ... and she's got some words for her Republican colleagues at the FCC. Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel spoke out against several GOP-pushed items the Commission seeks, or has already done. She offered comments on Net Neutrality; Next Gen TV, which the NAB was swift to respond to; and the restoration of the "UHF Discount" in the context of Sinclair Broadcast Group's proposed merger with Tribune Media.

The final results from Borrell Associates' 2017 local advertiser study are in, and some 3,551 local advertisers chimed in regarding their thoughts and plans on advertising ROI, marketing goals, and which medium works best to accomplish those goals.