the HOT List

Come April 1, the Chief Legal Officer at iHeartMedia will be pursuing a new opportunity outside of the company. Where is Jordan Fasbender going? Look no further than the properties Comcast will soon be spinning off from its NBCUniversal unit.

If you think the reduction-in-force efforts happening at a variety of broadcast media companies in recent weeks — and even today, at Audacy — are unique to those operations, think again. All U.S.-based employers announced 172,017 job cuts in February. That's the highest total for the month since 2009.

"With management’s decision to no longer disclose subscriber counts from Q1 onwards, it is unlikely we will be able to track the quarterly or regular cadence of how subscribers grow from here — aside from key milestones," MoffettNathanson notes in an investor report focused on Netflix. So how much more room can subscribers grow?

The updated forecast shows “slight” adjustments to previous estimates for 2025, with advertising revenue (excluding political) adjusted up by a meager 0.03 percent from the last forecast and total local ad revenue, including political spending, adjusted up by 0.1 percent.

A person with knowledge of the situation noted that some 6% of ABC News Group and Disney Entertainment Networks employees are losing their jobs as part of the effort. Many are based in New York.

It looks like Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) has a new, bipartisan fight on behalf of local broadcast radio companies on her hands, as a non-binding resolution that opposes "any new performance fee, tax, royalty or other charge" on domestic AM and FM stations has been introduced in the U.S. Senate for the current Congressional session.

Brendan Carr spent Monday in Barcelona for the MWC Barcelona conference, a major global gathering devoting to mobile technology. Carr delivered a Keynote Address of approximately eight minutes in length before joining a group discussion. The big takeaway? "In America ... we are returning to our free speech tradition."

As digital platforms continue to cut into traditional radio's share of the media pie, a study conducted in the middle of the 2024 election shows shifting media habits among news consumers in the US, highlighting a decline in AM/FM usage.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr had much to share on Thursday in a "Fireside Chat" at digital media publication Semafor's "Innovating to Restore Trust in News Summit" — an event that also saw the head of NPR defend its underwriting policies as it is being probed by the Commission for potential non-comm licensee violations.

"Our fourth quarter financial results mark a strong finish to another successful year for Nexstar in which we delivered $5.4 billion in total net revenue — the highest in our company's 28-year history," Nexstar CEO Perry A. Sook said as he opened the company's Q4 earnings call. Was he downplaying Nexstar's fiscal health?

Would MVPDs and voices of the cable television industry protest a NAB petition with the FCC requesting mandated transition dates for TV stations to adopt ATSC 3.0 broadcast signals? Perhaps. If so, the Consumer Technology Association, which had fought against the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act, has their back.

A 10pm Sunday premiere of a NBC prime-time series and a daytime serial debuting from CBS. What do they have to do with Gray Media? A lot, and that's what CEO Hilton Howell Jr. sought to stress as the publicly traded company's nontraditional revenue is about to jump in a way that differs from its peers.

As CEO Mike Steib and CFO Julie Heskett see it, TEGNA's financial strength and "disciplined execution" make it a standout broadcast television station owner, one ripe for growth and the right M&E activity as it nevertheless anticipates total Q1 2025 revenue to decline between 4% and 7%. As such, is TEGNA a buyer or seller?

The owner of such broadcast television stations as KGW-8 in Portland, Ore.; WTSP-10 in Tampa-St. Petersburg; and flagship WUSA-9 in Washington, D.C., enjoyed a 20% gain in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2024, helping it achieve full-year revenue growth of 7%. The big reason TEGNA saw the improvement is tied to political advertising.

The year-over-year results mark an improvement. But, in the eyes of analysts, the revenue growth seen in Q4 2024 for Sinclair Inc. may not be good enough. That's what the company led by Chris Ripley  has to contend with.