TV/Cable News

Paul Karpowicz is retiring at the end of June after leading the Local Media Group since 2005. Succeeding him is a fast-rising Meredith Corp. veteran who started at the company as an Asst. News Director at the company's two Portland, Ore., stations.

The MFM-BCCA’s Rainmaker Award is given in recognition of a member whose efforts and contributions have helped the association grow. Among this year's recipients are executives at Emmis Communications, Marketron and Meredith Corp.

In what is being hailed as "a major initiative to transform the commercial experience on its networks," Fox Networks Group President of Advertising Revenue Joe Marchese unveiled what are being billed as "JAZ" pods: two-ad pods that give advertisers adjacency to all of FOX's sports and entertainment programming.

A battle over program carriage focused on discrimination has been waged for two months between a premium sports network and Comcast. This fight saw the sports network file a highly redacted complaint with the FCC, to protect confidential information. Now, Comcast will have the same privilege as it defends itself.

A quintet of TV translator stations located in Montana have been obtained by one of the station's main public institutions of higher learning. The seller is a smaller institution of higher learning, and the deal gives Montana PBS additional over-the-air coverage.

In April 2017, Randy Bongarten's Bonten Media Group cashed out and took advantage of the restoration of the FCC's "UHF discount" by selling its 14 TV stations to Sinclair and its shared services/JSA partners for $240 million. Among those stations are Eureka-Arcata, Calif. properties that had been overseen since July 2010 by an individual who is heading to Nebraska, and taking a job at another major broadcast TV company.

An 11-year NBCUniversal finance veteran with experience at its O&Os in San Diego, Dallas and Chicago is heading to South Florida to serve as CFO of Telemundo's owned-and-operated TV stations. The job also includes NBCU's Spanish-language digital multicast network.

What is the current state of health at Meredith's Local Media Group, which includes 17 television stations? "Other revenues" are driving revenue growth, as seen in the company's just-released fiscal Q3 results. What other than retransmission consent fees could be generating the profits?

Tribune Media swung from a Q1 2017 net loss to see strong net income this year. Much of this can be pinned on trimmed programming expenses. But, there is another big multimillion-dollar reason why the company that very much expects to merge with Sinclair Broadcast Group had a good start to 2018.

A principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP has been chosen to share the firm’s insights concerning the future of advertising at Media Finance Focus 2018, the annual conference for MFM and its BCCA subsidiary, the media industry’s credit association.

Sinclair Broadcast Group enjoyed a much-needed jolt on Wall Street today, as investors cheered the news that it is teaming with Tribune Media to sell six FOX affiliates and the CW affiliate in Miami-Fort Lauderdale to 21st Century Fox. The timing was perfect, as Sinclair's Q1 results weren't so terrific.

The first-quarter story for Nexstar Media Group is not much different, on the surface, to that seen by Sinclair Broadcast Group: Net income missed Street forecasts, while net revenue did. Investors were satisfied, and Nexstar shares enjoyed a healthy boost on Wednesday.

Univision on Wednesday released its Q1 2018 results, and the timing couldn't be worse. A lengthy feature from Gizmodo trashing its corporate owner was widely distributed yesterday, as Univision executives put the final touches on its Upfront activities set for next week. As such, the poor results seen by the Hispanic-focused media company only make matters worse.

Gray Television was among the nine media companies reporting their Q1 earnings on Tuesday, and Gray -- like broadcast TV competitor TEGNA -- had very good things to share with investors. Net income was on the rise, as was net revenue. So, why did Gray shares dip?

The relationship between streamers and traditional TV is a close one, new details from Nielsen's Local Watch Report show. According to the report, traditional programming "shows impressive resilience in today's digital age." The big takeaway for broadcast TV companies: "Even the heaviest of streamers can't seem to shake broadcast viewing."