the HOT List

It's been a little more than three months since Bruce Swail has been at the helm of GatesAir, one of the world's leading transmitter vendors, working closely with radio and television broadcasters on all-things focused on bringing a clean, quality signal to consumers. In that time, it is fair to say that Swail has jumped head-first into an industry provider serving an industry at the cusp of massive change. In this exclusive interview with RBR+TVBR's WEEKLY TECH UPDATE, Swail gives us a glimpse into what's tops in his world, and what the radio and TV industry's C-Suite should keep their eyes on in 2018.

If you're a viewer of the long-running series Shark Tank, you'll know that the question, "Do you have a patent?" is a very important one for investors, and for eventual clients using the unique product. For ENCO Systems, the answer is "yes" with respect to a patent that specifically applies to providing automated captioning by using speech-to-text.

Just in time for Halloween, a "zombie" has surfaced in Washington. And, the Commission is comfortable enough with this creature living on an island off the coast of Los Angeles that it's treating it unlike Godzilla. That's because the FCC has given its approval to the first-ever transaction involving a channel-sharing agreement, a so-called "zombie" station resulting from the Commission's incentive auction, before the channel-sharing has even commenced.

Democratic Senators Mark Warner and Amy Klobuchar, along with Republican co-sponsor John McCain, introduced legislation Thursday that would extend the FEC and FCC’s disclosure rules for broadcasters and other media to online ads. Dubbed the "Honest Ads Act," the trio of politicians say their bill is designed to “bring needed transparency and accountability to online political ads.” But, does it go too far? TechFreedom President Berin Szóka says yes.

For DirecTV subscribers across the Hawaiian islands seeking to view The Doctors at 7am or the 8am edition of Hawaii News Now Sunrise, there was nothing but darkness this morning. At midnight Eastern today, KFVE-9 in Honolulu — the MyNetwork TV affiliate for the state of Hawaii — was "dropped" from DirecTV's lineup. It's the latest dispute resulting from the failure of a new retransmission fee agreement between a service provider and a broadcast company, and the second ongoing dispute involving a TV station serving Hawaii.

The company's SVP/Public Policy & Government Affairs, Kathleen Grillo, has fired back at Univision Communications some three days after its Spanish-language stations were yanked from all FiOs and Verizon mobile delivery systems. Grillo did so with a strongly worded letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai stating her company's case, and defending its actions. We've got a RBR+TVBR Observation on the situación.

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 seventh podcast installment, Ferber and Krasnow discuss the one part of any transaction that goes beyond intellectual property, possession of a broadcast license, or equipment acquisition — real estate. This is one of Ferber's favorite topics. Why?

Two Democratic members of the U.S. Senate and a powerful Republican Senator united to introduce legislation today that's designed to "bring needed transparency and accountability to online political ads." In short, the Honest Ads Act would make public who bought an online political ad—and bring to digital media the same rules as seen for political ads airing on radio and television. Similar legislation set for introduction in the House of Representatives would do the same.

The FCC late Wednesday paused by 15 days the 180-Day transaction "Shot Clock" in the proceeding for transfer of control of Tribune Media Co. to Sinclair Broadcast Group to allow for additional comment. By midday Thursday, Tribune Media signaled it was ready to roll with its acquisition by Sinclair, leaving it up to the Federal government to make the next move. 

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.”