TV/Cable News

Nexstar Media Group shares fell sharply for the third consecutive day, and continued to lose ground in immediate after-hours trading on Wall Street. With today's Closing Bell, the broadcast TV company's shares are now at their lowest level since the first days of November 2017.

In the early 1980s, Byron Allen was best known as one of several commentators on the NBC comedy talk show Real People. Now, he's a media mogul that just acquired The Weather Channel and its Local Now streaming service through his Allen Media LLC.

The individuals behind the launch of a 24/7 local news channel serving northern Michigan and key figures in the launch of Flood Communications' News Channel Nebraska (NCN) are ready to take their model across the U.S. The operation is scheduled to launch in late 2018, and affiliates are now being sought.

In a unanimous 5-0 vote, the FCC on Thursday adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that asks whether the Commission should streamline the process for reauthorizing television satellite stations when they are assigned or transferred in combination with their previously approved parent station.

It's been a rough 3 1/2 months on Wall Street for Nexstar. After climbing as high as $81.75 on January 15, the broadcast TV company's shares have stumbled. With Wednesday's finish, Nexstar has now effectively wiped out any growth in its share price seen since late November 2017.

A full-power TV station serving the city of Lubbock, Texas has just been sold. As a result, the CW Network affiliate for this Lone Star market will soon be in the hands of a crosstown company the owner already enjoys a relationship with. It's a transaction that could be the result of relaxed FCC ownership restrictions recently approved by the Ajit Pai-led Commission.

While the NAB and the "Big Four" network affiliate associations are seeking a two-tiered approach that would loosen the FCC's current 39% ownership reach cap, Nexstar Media Group argues that the cap should simply disappear. "Given the overwhelming shift in Americans’ media consumption habits," the national cap's elimination is what the company led by the TVB's Chairman wants.

That's a question Ashwin Virk of Simply Wall St. asks, as mid-cap stocks such as TEGNA "rarely draw attention from the investing community." Nevertheless, "commonly overlooked mid-caps have historically produced better risk-adjusted returns than their small and large-cap counterparts," Virk notes. With that, Virk took a deep dive into TEGNA's debt concentration to access its financial liquidity and got a good sense of the company formerly known as Gannett's ability to fund strategic acquisitions and grow through cyclical pressures. 

Neither a top-tier radio nor TV industry executive will be headlining the 2018 NAB Show opening session on Monday, April 9 in Las Vegas. That task has been given to Neal Mohan, the Chief Product Officer for YouTube.

“The Jewish Cowboy” of California's Coachella Valley will now be arguing that his TV broadcasting company's civil rights were violated by one of the nation's biggest MVPDs in federal court, rather than in state court. It's the latest chapter in a 2 1/2 year quest by Clark Garen, Managing Member of Tara Broadcasting, to get a low-power television station serving the Palm Springs, Calif., DMA on Charter Communications' Spectrum systems in the city of Beaumont. 

On February 13, RBR+TVBR's TRANSACTIONS TODAY reported on the acquisition of three full-power and two LPTV stations in Wyoming from Mark III Media. The purchase contract contains a requirement that Gray divest that station’s license to a third party promptly, and Gray said it would donate this station’s license to a non-profit entity. That's just happened, with the property going directly from Mark III to an institution of higher learning.

Sixteen days after LBI Media initially planned to flip the switch, the latest change for WGEN-8 in Miami is set to happen on Friday. It's a big return to a big signal for Estrella TV, and comes following the February 14 appointment of Hispanic media veteran Nick Valls as WGEN GM.

There was a bit of a silver lining on the final three months of 2017 for an industry rife with challenges in the months and years ahead. According to the just-released Fourth Quarter 2017 U.S. Multichannel Subscriber Report from S&P Global Market Intelligence group Kagan, subscription losses slowed for traditional multichannel video providers in the quarter. But, it was hardly enough to stop a disappointing year for MVPDs.

Here's an exclusive chance for 2018 NAB Show attendees to learn more about one of Wazee Digital's newest partnerships. On Monday, April 9, Wazee Digital CEO Harris Morris will host a Q&A session Viacom Media Networks SVP/Ad Sales Operations Phil Lalonde. The conversation will be conducted in a private, and casual, cocktail reception.