Legacy

It's a good week to be a member of iHeartMedia's team of corporate counsel. On Thursday, the Delaware state Supreme Court declined to bring back a derivative claim from a disgruntled investor who argued that the directors of iHeart subsidiary Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings breached their duty by failing to request a repayment of $1 billion from iHeart. This affirms a November 2016 ruling against GAMCO.

The FCC in December 2016 received a minor modification request for the CP of a noncommercial FM in Coggon, Iowa. An informal objection to the licensee's request came on Feb. 7, from Kirkwood Community College. Subsequent oppositions to the objection and reply comments were then submitted to the FCC. The Media Bureau has now rendered a decision in the matter.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has created an internal task force designed to continue the Commission’s work in support of the restoration of communications services in the Texas Gulf Coast, Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands — areas severely impacted by three strong hurricanes. Communications remains severely impaired in the U.S. Caribbean territories. Jessica Rosenworcel said, "You're Welcome." A Democratic House Member wants more.

It's not often that Educational Media Foundation decides to sell a radio station, given its ravenous appetite for expansion opportunities for its Christian Contemporary Music KLOVE and Air1 noncommercial formats. Yet, EMF is selling a Class A in the Lafayette, Ind., market, and the buyer is howlingly happy about the deal.

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 radio industry could be sitting on a profit-making goldmine. Beasley Broadcasting Group CEO Caroline Beasley sees the potential. Now, the FCC Chairman during the Reagan Administration is ready to make a big splash with a technology that can give HD Radio a boost -- and make FM radio a powerful tool in the growth of "IoT." Read more in this exclusive RBR+TVBR INFOCUS report now available to Tech readers.

A Democratic Member of the U.S. Senate this morning spoke out against changes to the FCC's rules regarding Net Neutrality, noting that as long as Chairman Ajit Pai continues to support the end of Title II classification for broadband, she can't support his vote for staying on as the agency's leader. Immediately following the anti-Pai rally call came details of a GOP tax reform proposal that the NAB says helps broadcasters.

Nearly five years ago, a resident of North Miami, Fla., was handed a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture of $25,000 for his efforts designed "to evade detection" of an unlicensed radio operation. Today, the FCC still hasn't silenced the pirate radio operation serving the area's sizable Haitian population. A proposed maximum fine nearly six times that 2012 financial penalty seeks to squelch the broadcasting buccaneer once and for all.

In the first 5-0 unanimous vote of the new FCC led by Chairman Ajit Pai, the Commission has given the green light to a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would eliminate rules requiring TV stations, along with cable entities and FM translators, to keep paper copies of FCC rules. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn was no longer skeptical of the proposal, while newly arrived Republican Brendan Carr was quite vocal of the need to modernize the FCC.

Quantum Corp.'s aiWARE™ for Xcellis, an on-premise and cloud version of the artificial intelligence (AI) platform from Veritone, has caught the world's attention — and they like what they see. The product earned the coveted Best of Show Award at IBC2017 in Amsterdam, a key convention for broadcast media tech purveyors and innovators.

NAB Show New York takes place October 18-19 at the Javits Convention Center in NYC, and for the first time will feature the “TV on Wall Street” program, a one-day conference offering a business perspective on the economic influences driving the evolution of media.

Here's a statistic broadcast TV stations heavily invested in live sports play-by-play may not like to digest: Your audience has not only a touch of grey, but it's becoming a Silver Convention. That's according to newly released data from Magna Global.

An Idaho "kid" has gained a way to reach listeners who enjoy skiing at a Montana winter resort near Yellowstone National Park. To the west, near Sacramento, an independent community-based noncomm has snagged a translator. These are the deals in detail in  RBR+TVBR's TRANSACTIONS TODAY for Friday, Sept. 15.

When it came time to prepare for one of the biggest and most dangerous hurricanes to ever make landfall in the mainland U.S., there was one "overwhelming" choice when it came to news and information before, during, and after the storm. No, it wasn't radio.

Radio has had a definite weather theme lately, first with Hurricane Harvey and then Hurricane Irma. Coverage of Irma by Florida stations was virtually wall-to-wall. Here’s a brief rundown of their broadcast activity as of Monday morning.