TV/Cable News

Rupert Murdoch’s media company has hit a roadblock in its bid to consolidate 21st Century Fox and Sky. Karen Bradley, Britain’s secretary of state for culture and media has referred the matter to Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority, for more rigorous regulatory scrutiny.

Nielsen has announced that it will collaborate with clypd, a leading audience-based sales platform for television networks. The syndicated service will offer a fully integrated, linear TV targeting solution for marketers, agencies, buying platforms, and publishers seeking to plan and buy on demographics beyond age and gender.

Comparing year-to-year, Week 2 of the regular season saw a 4% drop in live and same-day average viewers of Sunday games, and a 14% drop in viewers for Monday Night Football, compared to the 2016 season. For Week 1, there was a huge 13% average ratings drop. If the trend continues, it will cost the networks big money.

The U.S. broadcast station industry, including radio and TV stations, generated $48.5 billion in total revenue in 2016, according to Kagan, a group within S&P Global Market Intelligence. What's the five-year outlook for radio and TV station ad revenue? Look no further.

Here's a statistic broadcast TV stations heavily invested in live sports play-by-play may not like to digest: Your audience has not only a touch of grey, but it's becoming a Silver Convention. That's according to newly released data from Magna Global.

Some 3 1/2 months after the Bob Behar-led Hero Licenseco backed out of a multi million-dollar deal trading its post-Spectrum Auction Channel-sharing Agreement to a fast-growing media company based in Los Angeles, it appears that the deal is back on. According to a Form 314 filing with the FCC, this "zombie station" will indeed soon become a video service sibling to such iconic radio brands as "Power 106" and KDAY.

In January, Sinclair Broadcast Group named a new Director of Sales for its three TV stations in Columbus, Ohio. Just nine months later, Sinclair has given birth to a new position for this company vet: oversight for the company's Dayton operation some 90 minutes to the west.

In a statement as to the value of its O&O's local news operations, NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations has just promoted the Asst. News Director of KNBC-4 in Los Angeles to the role of President/GM of its two stations in the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose market.

A presentation devoted to "cord-cutting" was delivered to the Wall Street investment community on Thursday as part of the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference, with Mike Vorhaus, Los Angeles-based President of Magid Advisors, sharing some data about the rising embrace of SVOD services. The data are sobering reminders for broadcast TV's C-Suite that local news and original programming may be its final saving grace.

After more than a decade of providing cloud-based ad management technology to radio broadcasting companies, vCreative is nearing the launch of a similar platform for broadcast TV stations. The company's founder, Jinny Laderer, shared her thoughts on ad scheduling and how it can still get fouled up. It's why she's convinced TV can benefit from the tool she developed with her husband in the early 2000s, and we're pleased to offer this post-Irma encore for the benefit of all RBR+TVBR readers.

With a declaration that he's not concerned about ratings for 2017-18 National Football League telecasts, CBS Corp. Chairman/CEO Les Moonves doubled down on his company's sports delivery mission by saying his network will focus on news and scores and not on analyst discussion and debate with the launch of a sports-focused OTT service. Investors yawned, and sold off their CBS shares.

A coalition of public media TV stations has been formed, with its key objective forming an effective conversion plan of Public Media Company stations to "next-gen TV" — otherwise known as ATSC 3.0. The newly launched Public Media Venture Group will assist these noncomm TV stations in building and the development of new next generation operating models to expand local public service, and is being projected to increase and diversify station revenue through expanded service.

Sure, there's a lot of reports out there, sponsored by digital media denizens, that seek to paint a bleak picture for MVPDs and broadcast TV's C-Suite by suggesting "cord-cutting" and digital delivery of video entertainment is more apparent than ever. The latest report comes from Pew Research Center, however, and its findings regarding how young adults are consuming television programming need to be read — and fully digested — by every broadcast media executive today.

A veteran television news agent whose resume includes roles at ESPN and CBS Radio's WFAN-AM 660 in New York has been selected as the new Head of UTA News and Broadcasting at United Talent Agency (UTA). This begins what UTA and its N.S. Bienstock arm are calling "a transition in leadership from legendary news agents Richard Leibner and Carole Cooper, who continue in active leadership roles representing many of UTA’s ... news and broadcasting clients."

When it came time to prepare for one of the biggest and most dangerous hurricanes to ever make landfall in the mainland U.S., there was one "overwhelming" choice when it came to news and information before, during, and after the storm. No, it wasn't radio.