the HOT List

There are plenty of vocal Wall Street soothsayers and media ecologist clairvoyants out there, presenting their forecasts on what your business climate will likely be like for the next 12 months. The latest prognostication comes from Noble Capital Markets, which has a good report card for radio while giving broadcast TV a rotten egg.

The holiday gift-giving season is about to begin, with Christmas decorations nearly ready to go on display at retailers across North America -- even as Halloween is still half a month away. One big item likely to be on many Wish Lists is a smart speaker, and a newly released study shows Q4 sales of smart speakers will likely approach 12 million units globally. Of the two leading brands in this space, one is a clear winner. Learn what this means for your radio station's plans to win back the home.

The Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, chaired by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), is moving forward with a markup of a FCC reauthorization bill by bringing it to the full House Energy & Commerce Committee. The shift from the Subcommittee to the full Committee came via a unanimous voice vote this afternoon at a 30-minute hearing overseen by Blackburn at the Rayburn House Office Building on the south side of Capitol Hill.

Until 2:45pm Pacific on Tuesday, all was mum regarding the status of the required divestitures from CBS Radio's Reverse Morris Trust-fueled merger with Entercom. That silence was broken in a big way by way of a staff e-mail from CBS Radio President/CEO Andre Fernandez. He spilled the beans that an additional 16 stations are being sold, and he shared exactly what those stations are.

Total marketing communications investments have remained flat since 2010. According to noted media ecologist Jack Myers, these injections of cash are projected to increase from $580 billion in 2010 to a projected $596 billion in 2020. That amounts to a 2.8% increase. But, when factoring inflation, "the real dollars invested by marketers in the U.S. marketing and media economy has declined precipitously."

The NAB on Tuesday said it's sending 10,000 battery-operated radios to Puerto Rico for distribution to those impacted by Hurricane Maria. It is being paid for by "multiple U.S. broadcasters," the NAB and the National Alliance of State Broadcasters Associations (NASBA). The move reiterates the importance of AM and FM radio in the time of emergencies. It also deflects from the deafening silence of some of the radio industry's biggest players on the push for FM chips in iPhones.

One of the biggest winners of spectrum in the FCC's incentive auction has partnered up with FOX Television Stations to assist in repacking its 600 MHz spectrum. In doing so, T-Mobile is doing its part in accelerating the final repack by 16 months and, it claims, reducing overall costs for the Incentive Auction Relocation fund by tens of millions of dollars.

Here's some happy news for those in the broadcast media C-Suites tired of those reports from the IAB and others in the digital universe that continue to bash "traditional" TV and lesser-respected radio as old guard and ineffective for advertisers. According to a newly released report from eMarketer, adults will spend and average of 12 hours and 1 minute per day with major media in 2017.

In this day and age, having some "AM revitalization" with an FM signal -- especially in this tech savvy region -- is likely a bigger draw for consumers and the companies wishing to build their sales with this audience than a huge kHz signal. That's why an AM in Santa Rosa, in the heart of Sonoma County, is adding a translator 17 miles to the south in a town where actress Winona Ryder grew up.

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 fifth episode, Ferber and Krasnow discuss the topic of Broadcast Cash Flow. Is it easy to calculate? 

With a promising political advertising season, plus Olympics and World Cup dollars in view, local and network TV should be bullish as 2018 nears, respected media ecologist Jack Myers notes. Why such a positive prognosis for TV? He says marketers are less than thrilled with their digital video options. Furthermore, he says, "radio will ride on their coattails." Unfortunately, MyersBizNet long-term forecasts show 2019 to be a challenging year.

Great Expectations. It's not just the name of Charles Dickens' 13th novel, but may also describe the feeling many broadcast media C-Suite executives have for the deal-making they thought would be in movement by now. With FCC Chairman Ajit Pai now firmly in place through June 2021, one would think the market for radio and TV transactions would be exploding. Is everyone waiting for the Entercom spins? Is Sinclair's merger with Tribune Media spooking everyone? No, and no. But, the reasons why it's so slow are very clear to Frank Kalil.

For the first time in two years, Netflix is raising its prices on its mid-range and top-tier subscription plans. Investors liked the move, sending the company's shares soaring by nearly 5.5% in trading on Thursday. Meanwhile, the "stub" of publicly traded iHeart shares was down as Cumulus stock saw a much-need climb, even if small.

A Member of the House of Representatives serving North Carolina's fourth Congressional District has taken aim at the FCC for its "UHF discount," noting during a Tuesday call with members of the press that — as many others have argued — the return of the rule by the Commission is giving Sinclair Broadcast Group an unacceptable ability to acquire Tribune Media.