TV/Cable News

Sinclair Broadcast Group subsidiary Sinclair Television Group has successfully raised new incremental term B loans and amended certain terms under its existing bank credit facility.

Some 2 1/2 years after acquiring a full-power UHF facility licensed to Lewiston, Maine, the station's owner has opted to sell the station. Who's the buyer? It's the company that owns the independent network presently using this station's DT2 signal to reach local viewers. The transaction likely means the station's main signal will soon say goodbye to MyNetwork TV programming and hello to ION. 

West Palm Beach is the headquarters for a broadcast television company with a network of stations and a pair of digital multicast offerings to boot. The company, ION Media, provided an updated to its financial stakeholders on Monday. In doing so, it highlighted its performance in revenue, ratings and reach. It also extended the role of the company's Chairman/CEO for another two years—something provided as secondary news to reporters.

The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) has given its thumbs-up to the Advanced Emergency Alerting (AEA) specification developed by Monroe Electronics as part of the A/331 standard. With the Dec. 6 approval of the A/311 Signaling, Delivery, Synchronization and Error Protection standard, announced Wednesday), AEA is now an official function within the ATSC 3.0 suite of next-generation broadcast transmission standards.

A 13-year veteran of NBCUniversal who has most recently served as President and co-Managing Partner of Channel Media Solutions (CMS) has just been named Chief Technology Officer for Disney|ABC Television Group.

Members of the Advanced Television Systems Committee Inc. (ATSC) have elected three industry executives to serve on the ATSC Board of Directors for three-year terms that begin in January 2018.

The "only Black daily newscast on television" has decided to suspended production, and its final broadcast on Urban One's African American-targeted TV One cable network has been schedule for Dec. 21.

There'll be no loss of Despierta América, world-class soccer, or any prime-time telenovelas for Frontier Communications subscribers. That's thanks to a new retransmission fee agreement signed Friday by the MVPD and Univision Communications.

In late June, RBR+TVBR reported on the acquisition by Gray Television of a Retro TV affiliate in the state of Florida and its digital LPTV partner serving the capital of Tallahassee. The deal has just passed muster with the FCC. But, the seller has agreed to a Consent Decree with the Commission that resolves several major issues raised in the FCC's review of the station's license renewal. Terms of the decree are being transferred to Gray as part of the transaction.

In November, Randy Freer exited Fox Networks Group (FNG) as President/COO to take the CEO role at Hulu. We now know who is succeeding Freer in the role, giving him operational oversight of FOX Broadcasting Company and 20th Century Fox Television; Fox Sports; Fox Cable Networks' FX Networks and National Geographic Partners; and Fox Networks Group Europe, Asia and Latin America. 

The individual that will be delivering the opening keynote address at Media Financial Management Association’s 2018 CFO Summit, scheduled for March 8-9 at the Fort Lauderdale Beach Hilton on A1A overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, has been booked. 

An independent video advertising infrastructure company founded in 2014 has just been acquired by Nexstar Media Group in an all-cash deal valued at approximately $90 million.

Michael Dell's OTA Broadcasting made a fortune by participating in the FCC's incentive auction. In particular, his Fairfax, Va.-based operation earned exactly $125,932,367 for giving up the spectrum of the full-power UHF station bringing Ion Life programming to southern New England. Now, OTA's Channel-Sharing Agreement struck to ensure the network's continued over-the-air availability is being traded ... to Ion Media Networks.

Don't call it a "Boomerang" effect if Turner sees an immediately positive impact from subscription video on-demand content ratings. The parent of such cable networks as Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, CNN, HLN, TBS, TNT and truTV has signed on as a subscriber to Nielsen's SVOD Content Ratings.

The ABC Owned Television Stations Group has turned to The Walt Disney Co.'s ABC Television Network Online arm in selecting its new President. In doing so, it selects a woman who spent six years as VP/Creative Services and Programming for KABC-7 in Los Angeles.