TV/Cable News

Wall Street analyst Michael Nathanson recently reviewed cord-cutting trends and its impact on MVPDs and now senses "another crucial consumer trend" — the shift in linear consumption from non-live to live content. As Nathanson observes, this shift has been wreaking havoc on the underlying economics of networks for some time now. 

It's hardly a secret that the Mike Bloomberg for President campaign has emerged as a major spending machine on broadcast TV. Now, the Bloomberg campaign is ramping up its activity on spot cable, surpassing 40,000 spot plays for the week ending March 1.

In January, the FCC's Media Bureau instructed the licensee of a New York market TV station to refile a market modification petition on the grounds that it was lacking in one significant area. That petition was dismissed, and the licensee quickly moved forward to remedy the situation and submit a new TV market modification request. Policy Division Sr. Deputy Chief Steven Broeckaert has made his decision.

Sinclair Broadcast Group on Aug. 23, 2019 closed on its purchase of FOX regional sports networks. As such, some 23 MVPD-distributed channels carrying the FOX brand in some way are now fully meshed into the Sinclair stable. This will, in the coming months, result in the shedding of any channel name tied to its former owner. Meanwhile, YouTube TV is dropping Sinclair's RSNs on Saturday.

Graham Media Group and the Miami-based ABC affiliate presently managed by a Berkshire Hathaway company have launched a new initiative expressly created to combat what it believes are nothing short of "fake news" campaigns targeting local media. Here's what "Verified" is designed to do.

Discovery Communications, by all accounts, had a solid fourth quarter. It's per-share earnings surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by five cents, while also narrowly beating Zacks' Q4 revenue projection. That couldn't stop investors from selling the MVPD-heavy company's stock.

On the same day that Gray Television announced that it is taking a minority stake in TEGNA-owned connected TV and “over-the-top” (OTT) advertising business PREMION,  NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations revealed that its 42 NBC and Telemundo broadcast stations will be fully integrated into a new advanced video ad business -- designed for local/regional CTV and OTT advertisers.

The board of directors of Cincinnati-based television broadcaster The E.W. Scripps Company has authorized a new share repurchase program. At the same time, it declared a cash dividend for the first quarter of 2020 — two days ahead of Scripps' release of its Q4 and full-year 2019 financial results.

In a move designed to shore up investor confidence -- and take advantage of what the C-Suite likely believes is an undervalued stock -- the CEO of the company that owns 17 television stations in markets such as Phoenix, Nashville and Portland, Ore., has purchased 10,000 shares of his employer's common stock on the open market. The purchase by Tom Harty is valued at $289,000.

The affiliate boards of directors of ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX Television will once again hold meetings during the 2020 NAB Show, still on schedule for April 18-22 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. The CW Network will also host meetings with their affiliated television station representatives.

His campaign's Spot TV efforts keep growing, and a national Spot Radio campaign kicked off in earnest last week. Now, the Mike Bloomberg for President campaign is throwing money into Spot Cable. The latest Spot Ten Cable report from Media Monitors shows a huge uptick in plays for the week ending February 23.

The Board of Directors of Nielsen Holdings plc has declared a quarterly cash dividend of Nielsen's common stock. The dividend is payable on March 19, to shareholders of record at the close of business on Thursday, March 5.

The newly renamed Estrella Media, which recently shed all ties to the Liberman family that founded the operation as LBI Media, is celebrating a major win by aligning its flagship broadcast TV station with a Major League Soccer franchise born in the autumn of 2014.

On January 27, Entravision Communications shares dipped below the $2 mark. Since then, the Hispanic-focused multimedia company has had difficulty getting its stock moving upward, after years of decline. On Thursday, a 2.7% dip only exacerbated matters for Los Angeles-based Entravision.

For 25 1/2 years, David Loving was an integral leader within the Univision Television Group, serving as Univision Media/Houston SVP/GM since August 2010. As of March 2, Loving will now be leading the two Des Moines properties owned by the company formerly known as Gannett for the last 11 months.