the HOT List

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.

The elimination of the FCC's main studio rule is one step closer from becoming a reality. The Commission on Tuesday unveiled its tentative agenda for its October Open meeting, and it confirmed that the five-member agency will consider MB Docket No. 17-106. 

The FCC on Tuesday released its Broadcast Station Totals for the first nine months of 2017. Thanks to the FCC's Spectrum Auction, there are some dips in the number of broadcast TV stations licensed to air in the U.S. Meanwhile, there are fewer commercial FM stations and several more FM translators, while the number of AMs has taken a big dip.

Barring the unexpected, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai entered the day all but assured of a second term at the FCC, ensuring he will remain the leader through the end of June 2021. The U.S. Senate made it official Monday afternoon (10/2), confirming him for a second term that retroactively began July 1, 2016, in a 52-41 vote.

There's a new RVP for Radio, and a new RVP for Television, at Cox Media Group. In a late Monday announcement, the company turned to the head of its four South Florida FMs to take on a greater role for Cox's radio stations across four other markets. Concurrently, a Steel City TV exec is adding four markets to his oversight.

There will be no "Big Bang" involving any affiliate switches in some 32 Nielsen DMAs across the U.S. for Gray Television. A new multi-year renewal of the publicly traded broadcast company's station affiliation agreements with CBS Television has been reached.

Just days after reaching a new retransmission fee agreement with Citadel Communications for ABC affiliates in Providence, and Lincoln, Neb., DISH Network has, by law, been forced to yank stations owned by Lilly Broadcasting off its lineups as yet another retrans fight has erupted. This one had the ACA ticked off: CBS and ABC stations serving Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands were impacted for a brief period.

WABC-7 and Disney-branded cable channels will remain on Altice USA cable TV systems, thanks to an retransmission fee agreement reached "in principle" Sunday evening. The accord puts to rest fears that Altice's Optimum systems in Westchester County and on Long Island would have been forced, by law, to remove the channels from its respective lineups.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai on Thursday issued a plea to Apple to activate the FM chips it has in its iPhones. There's just one small problem, Apple noted on Friday: All iPhones newer than the iPhone 6 don't have FM radio chips in them, nor do they have antennas designed to pull in FM radio signals. We've got an RBR+TVBR Observation on the subject, which is sure to fire up all radio broadcasting company owners and managers.

More than 550 television and advertising agency executives gathered today in New York for TVB Forward, and among the key highlights from this TV industry and ad agency conference was a session that saw one influential analyst give a thumbs-up to investing in local broadcast TV companies. RBR+TVBR was in attendance to bring readers in-depth coverage of this important industry event.

In a speech delivered as a welcome to attendees of the daylong TVB Forward conference in New York, Nexstar Media Group head Perry Sook, who also serves as the Television Advertising Bureau's Chairman, highlighted the strength of the local broadcast TV industry. Sook also took note of what steps are needed by local TV broadcast companies in order to remain competitive, while declaring that there's no better venue for all types of advertisers.