TV/Cable News

From 1987 to 2002, Ken Jefferson was a household name for many viewers in the Dayton area. After a quarter century with Cox Media Group, he ventured to Southwest Florida and then to Virginia, for family reasons. Media and viewers in these three regions are now mourning the sudden loss of Jefferson, who died during the weekend of March 3 after a brief illness.

The chairman of Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media has just been handed a whole wide world of sports to oversee. Effective today, James Pitaro has been named President of ESPN. He takes a role last held on a full-time basis by John Skipper, who stepped down in December.

A woman considered to be "an iconic leader" in New Mexico broadcasting has announced that she will retire in fall 2018 from her top role at a major ABC affiliate in the Land of Enchantment. She's been the head of this TV station since 1993, and has enjoyed a 48-year career that includes becoming the first female co-anchor of a television newscast in Albuquerque.

Meredith Corp. has received lots of attention in recent weeks for the Feb. 1 closing of its Time Inc. acquisition. But, that's not to say the $2.8 billion buy means the company with a devotion to women's lifestyle brands has any less interest in being a TV station owner. Meredith's Local Media Group includes 17 television stations, reaching 11% of U.S. households, and it has just named a VP/News & Marketing.

Jon Steinlauf will become Chief U.S. Advertising Sales Officer of Discovery following its merger with Scripps Interactive Networks, while several top executives will continue in their roles. That said, Rich Ross, currently Group President of Discovery Channel and Science Channel, will be leaving the company. Discovery provided details just before Thursday's Closing Bell on Wall Street.

The commercial availability of Nielsen National TV Out-of-Home Preliminary Reporting has arrived, effective today (3/1). An extension of Nielsen National TV Out-of-Home Service, first launched in April 2017, this new report significantly expedites delivery of insights of out-of-home audiences.

For the new owner of KFMB-8 and KFMB-AM & FM in San Diego, the final quarter of Q4 marked the start of new growth opportunities in a key U.S. market. Revenue sputtered, however, in the final three months of Q4, with TEGNA experiencing a 10.3% drop to $490.3 million, from $546.86 million. "It's all good," as they say in Mission Beach. The results beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $488.9 million, and the same can be said for TEGNA's net income.

As expected, two of Tribune Media's biggest TV properties are being sold by Sinclair Broadcast Group in order to stay within the federal government's 39% national ownership reach cap. Also as expected, the buyers are closely tied to Sinclair, which will essentially continue to operate the stations. The reason is simple: the respective buyers are closely intertwined with Sinclair.

A new global study on who is paying for streaming video services shows the U.S. and Canada far and away the leading nations where "OTT" is eating away at cable TV. Here's a look at how many households are paying for these services, and what the worldwide SVOD outlook is for the next five years.

CBS affiliate WJAX-47 in Jacksonville has enjoyed close ties with the market's FOX affiliate, WFOX-30, for a decade. It's the result of a sale of WJAX, formerly known as WTEV, by Clear Channel that closed in March 2008.  Since July 2012, Cox Media Group has operated the two stations, with WJAX owned by Bayshore Television — a partner to CMG that would allow the company to avoid breaking the FCC's Top Four rule while maintaining operational control via a shared services and sales agreement. Now, Bayshore is selling WJAX. Nothing is poised to change for viewers, for staff, or for Cox.

For The E.W. Scripps Co., there will be no future in radio. In a nod to its late January announcement that it has retained Tucson, Ariz.-based Kalil & Co. to market all of its AM and FM stations, Scripps' Q4 radio operations results were included in the company's "discontinued operations" as part of its fourth quarter earnings released early Wednesday. From today, Scripps will focus on two segments, Local Media and National Media. One of those segments suffered in Q4.

In a sign that reaching consumers via digital content platforms is evermore important for broadcast TV companies, the entity formerly known as Gannett has forged a strategic content partnership with the digital media firm behind The Outline. It's known for some decisively liberal-leaning editorial, and we've got an RBR+TVBR Observation on what TEGNA can bring to The Outline — not the other way around.

Discovery Communications has cleared a major hurdle on its path to completing its proposed acquisition of Scripps Networks Interactive. The Department of Justice on Tuesday closed its investigation into Discovery’s deal, announced in July 2017.

Nexstar Media Group stock climbed into positive territory during the midday hours on Tuesday, after dipping into negative territory in an early investor response to the company's just-released Q4 2017 earnings results. However, that gain couldn't hold, as NXST shares dipped 20 cents, to $73.55, at the Closing Bell. The loss came despite beating Wall Street estimates on its revenue and income.

After nearly a year of arguments, a decision has arrived from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in a matter involving Fox News Network that first emerged in August 2013. The verdict:  a $500-per-month TV and radio broadcast search service violated U.S. copyright law by providing users with a search engine of videos from sources including Fox News without their permission. The decision reverses a lower court ruling saying TVEyes was OK, based on the "Fair Use" doctrine.