TV/Cable News

Nielsen Holdings shares were flat in Wednesday's trading on Wall Street following the announcement from the nation's dominant audience measurement and consumer data research company that its Nielsen Finance LLC and Nielsen Finance Co. are proposing to issue raise $1 billion in a debt offering.

The broadcast TV company that owns such stations as WUSA-9 in Washington, D.C., and KGW-8 in Portland, Ore., has priced its just-announced private offering of notes with the intent of repaying hundreds of millions in notes due 2021 and some $43 million tied to notes due in four years.

A virtual Census 2020 phone bank gets the green light across ABC-owned television stations in such key electorate markets as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, San Francisco, Raleigh-Durham and Fresno. Things kick off Wednesday, in partnership with the Hispanic Federation.

Some 68% of American respondents of a just-released study say they pay for some sort of live television programming in one way or another. Why? The answer, says research firm CivicScience, is simple: News.

WBRC, branded as "FOX6," has unveiled a new weekday anchor lineup in its evening and late newscasts. Here are all of the details, as the station moves forward with the retirement of Janet Hall after 40 years of service to WBRC.

A non-requested, non-binding proposal from the owner of MVPDs Suddenlink and Optimum this week teamed with one of North America's largest media companies a bid to acquire the parent company of MVPD Atlantic Broadband and owner of 23 radio stations in Canada. The recipient of the bid has flat-out rejected the offer.

Since 2014, he's served as President/GM of Hearst Television's ABC affiliate serving Savannah, Ga., and nearby Hilton Head Island and Beaufort, S.C. Now, after six years in the role, this former divisional VP of The New York Times Company Broadcast Group will retire, later this fall.

Fresh off the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, political advertising is ramping up for TV broadcasters as limitations due to COVID-19 are expected to boost TV's take of the important revenue segment. With lower-than-expected political revenue in Q2, a windfall of political advertising in the second half of 2020 will be needed for the segment to reach a record.

A local broadcast TV streaming service some companies, and the NAB, say is illegally distributing stations without a retransmission agreement is now available in DMA No. 15. As a result, 66 local TV channels delivered via the internet — "for free" — are available for all within and surrounding the home of Motown and GM.

The highly anticipated and heavily reported "return of traditional, trusted, fact-based news reporting" to cable television is being celebrated on Wall Street and on Main Street, U.S.A. "NewsNation" makes it debut tonight at 8pm Eastern at a refreshed WGN America — once Tribune Media's flagship cable TV network and now owned by Nexstar Media Group.

Upward of 200 over-the-air TV stations owned by Gray Television, Meredith Corp., Cowles Media Company, Morgan Murphy Media and Heritage Broacasting Group have signed on as the initial launch partners for a new free ad-supported national streaming service built by a key live local OTT tech company. And, Gray is putting its dollars into its ultimate success.

First, it was an Albuquerque station licensed to John Viall Jr.‘s Tamer Media. Then came two stations licensed to Sheldon Galloway-led Shield Media. Now, a UHF station in Providence offering FOX and The CW Network on a digital multicast channel is the latest station being transferred to a big Nexstar Media Group services partner.

With fuboTV's rebirth as a broader virtual MVPD offering under new ownership, it is making a play for more Spanish-speaking U.S. Hispanic consumers. To help drive that growth, it has forged a distribution agreement with a Burbank-based media multimedia company that owns nearly all of the programming on its nationally distributed TV network.

ATSC 3.0 datacasting brings the one-to-many delivery of broadcasting to the one-to-one world of wireless connectivity, just as the Internet of Things gathers steam. This means steady, low-maintenance dividend-like revenue streams for broadcasters, and capital expenditure relief for wireless carriers.

Gray's NBC affiliate serving Lake Charles, La., has sustained major damage to its broadcast tower, with debris reportedly impacting the station's studio. Meanwhile, Cumulus Media's building is gone, one of its stations announced. All employees are reported safe — a message echoed by Townsquare Media/Lake Charles, which sustained minimal damage from Hurricane Laura.