the HOT List

As May 2023 came to a close, The E.W. Scripps Co. attracted attention for sharing with its employees details about a local news initiative designed to transform how its broadcast TV stations report and produce its newscasts on a daily basis. This week, the publicly traded company announced via an internal memo the creation of five new RVP/GM positions.

The new digital broadcast standard powered by ATSC 3.0 will debut in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market on August 22, and with the conversion of a "lighthouse" UHF station to NEXTGEN TV broadcasts comes an announcement from the NAB of its next PILOT Next Generation TV Fellowship.

New 10am hourlong local newscasts came September 11 to WABC-7 in New York, WPVI-6 in Philadelphia and WTVD-11 in Raleigh-Durham. That is because “Tamron Hall” took over the 2 p.m. time slot in those markets, aligning her with the other ABC Owned Television Stations’ afternoon programming.

The TVB is challenging the widely disseminated findings in “The Gauge” by stating it simply lacks “the key data needed by advertisers” for them to fairly finalize their media buying and planning activities.

The organization responsible for collecting royalty payments from media organizations that stream recorded music online has filed a lawsuit in a Federal District Court against the nation's lone satellite broadcasting company. As SoundExchange sees it, SiriusXM has wrongfully withheld upward of $150 million in unpaid royalties over the past several years. Sirius XM has responded.

The broadcast TV arm of FOX Corp. led by CEO Jack Abernethy, is restructuring its Advertising Sales division by merging its local, national and digital sales efforts into one unit. The move, the company says, is designed to "leverage the power" of FOX's news content, live sports and digital/streaming platforms.

In a transaction that sees Michael J. Bergner serve as the broker, Beasley Media Group is parting ways with a standalone FM in a market adjacent to the Cradle of Liberty, where it operates six brands. The price and deal details are included in an asset purchase agreement filed late Monday with the FCC.

Paramount Global unit has confirmed that Neeraj Khelami will be relinquishing his role as President and co-Head of CBS News and Stations. At the same time, CBS Media Ventures President Steven LoCascio is retiring. Their respective duties will be absorbed by a former longtime ABC Owned Stations leader.

Orlando Salazar, who in February agreed to buy Mega TV for SBS to use as a broadcast home for his conservative Spanish-language news portal, is reportedly in discussions to acquire Americano Media. That's the conservative Spanish-language News/Talk operation once on SiriusXM presently offering programming to Audacy and iHeartMedia AMs across Florida.

Viewers in the nation's fourth-largest market now have access to television signals delivered via free-to-air stations thanks to ATSC 3.0 technology that is being rolled out across the U.S. on a voluntary basis. Pearl TV confirmed to RBR+TVBR which station is the "lighthouse" ATSC 3.0 TV station for Philadelphia.

The owner of Standard Media Index, Lumina, and SQAD finds that June 2023 marked the third lowest month in nearly seven years for proportion of spend against new entertainment programming (20.9%) versus repeat entertainment programming (79%). It is the lowest dip in share since the pandemic. 

The Walt Disney Company earns billions of dollars each quarter from its Linear Networks, one of three key components to the Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution division's bottom line. How did those Linear Networks, which include the ABC Owned Stations, perform in the fiscal third quarter of 2023? Revenues were down 7%, while operating income slid considerably.

If it were up to broadcast television station affiliate group members, the NAB and Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, retransmission consent regulatory policy would be extended to vMVPDs.  The two leading Republicans on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce aren't so keen on the idea.

As tough comps and continued macroeconomic uncertainty are heavily impacting the nation's top two radio station ownership groups, Townsquare Media in Q2 again sent the message that it's different — and its Digital Advertising prowess did much to help the company's revenue come in just shy of second quarter 2022's political dollar-aided results.

The nation's biggest owner of broadcast television stations issued its second quarter 2023 earnings report ahead of Tuesday's Opening Bell on Wall Street, and for shareholders the three-month period was a good one. Revenue came right in line with what 9 analysts polled by Yahoo! Finance predicted, while its diluted earnings per share easily surpassed the consensus estimate of 8 analysts polled.