the HOT List

Starting with the 2024-2025 season, the National Hockey League franchise serving the Pacific Northwest will see more than 70 non-nationally televised games appear on broadcast TV.  It's thanks to an agreement announced Thursday between the Seattle Kraken and TEGNA.

As CEO Wade Davis said with the release Thursday of TelevisaUnivision's Q1 2024 earnings report, “2024 started strong with great revenue growth and continued progress across our most important strategic initiatives." That said, Adjusted OIBDA was down 9% and domestic revenue was flat year-over-year, with improvements in Mexico fueling the growth.

Brendan Carr issued a statement late Tuesday following the release of a Memorandum Opinion and Order allowing the sale of WADL-38 in Detroit to proceed, but with several conditions. In Carr's view, "The FCC’s decision to redline the terms of a deal like this plainly exceeds the agency’s statutory authority."

For months, the FCC has been weighing how to proceed with the proposed sale of WADL-38 in Detroit by Kevin Adell to Mission Broadcasting. The ATVA and NCTA protested. The Commission raised concerns involving Nexstar's ties to Mission in this deal. Now, a resolution has arrived — with conditions.

The "non-compete" clause, which prevented a star talent from crossing the street for a specific period of time, has been banned. As the FTC Chair sees it, this final rule is engineered to "promote competition" and is designed to protect "the fundamental freedom of workers to change jobs, increasing innovation, and fostering new business formation."

Political activist Brent Bozell III wants the FCC to put the brakes on Audacy's emergence from debtor-in-possession status. Why? "There is no question that George Soros and his affiliated businesses are looking to control these radio stations to advance their particular brand of activism," he claims.

In the last quarter of every even-numbered year, the FCC is tasked to publish a "Communications Marketplace Report." Your opportunity to tell the Commission exactly how business is, and what it could be like, begins in early June.

The nation's No. 1 owner of broadcast TV stations on Monday afternoon filed its response to the FCC’s proposed fine linked to the company’s relationship with WPIX-11 in New York. "We will not be issuing any additional statement regarding the filing, which we will let speak for itself," a company spokesperson says.

Beasley Media Group's stock has moved from the Nasdaq Global Market to the Nasdaq Select Market. For shareholders, the move was designed to be largely transparent. And, it gives the company more time to meet Nasdaq's $1 minimum valuation and regain rule compliance.

Seven DMAs where The E.W. Scripps Co. presently offers The CW network as a local over-the-air offering via one of its broadcast signals will soon be parting ways with the Nexstar Media Group-owned offering, RBR+TVBR has confirmed.

On April 3, Townsquare Media said it would release its Q1 2024 results on May 9 and hold an 8am Eastern conference call. It's now known that Townsquare will be competing for analysts' attention with iHeartMedia, which has scheduled its own call at the exact same time.

“This leverages the strengths of two great companies to build something new,” said Deb McDermott, known for her role as the head of Standard Media. She will serve as Chair of MediaCo. To be clear, the $120 million transaction does not involve an asset purchase agreement ... yet.

The Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, and a colleague representing San Antonio, have sent a letter to Bob Iger, Lachlan Murdoch and David Zaslav — the respective leaders of Disney, FOX and Warner Bros. Discovery — to share their worries over "Hulu for Sports."

In Jacksonville, Fla., TEGNA brands its NBC and ABC affiliates as "First Coast News," owing to nearby St. Augustine. Both stations air shared newscasts, and have been a "duopoly" since November 1999. Now, TEGNA is asking the Commission to give it an digital-era upgrade.

S&P Global Ratings, on the second day of the 2024 NAB Show in Las Vegas, moved ahead with several rating actions on U.S. local TV broadcasters in 2024. The news is not good.