TV/Cable News

The Media Bureau is temporarily lifting a freeze imposed on the filing and processing of full power and Class A station applications—a move that it says "will help ensure the utility of an upcoming application filing window for secondary stations displaced by the incentive auction repacking process."

For DirecTV subscribers across the Hawaiian islands seeking to view The Doctors at 7am or the 8am edition of Hawaii News Now Sunrise, there was nothing but darkness this morning. At midnight Eastern today, KFVE-9 in Honolulu — the MyNetwork TV affiliate for the state of Hawaii — was "dropped" from DirecTV's lineup. It's the latest dispute resulting from the failure of a new retransmission fee agreement between a service provider and a broadcast company, and the second ongoing dispute involving a TV station serving Hawaii.

The company's SVP/Public Policy & Government Affairs, Kathleen Grillo, has fired back at Univision Communications some three days after its Spanish-language stations were yanked from all FiOs and Verizon mobile delivery systems. Grillo did so with a strongly worded letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai stating her company's case, and defending its actions. We've got a RBR+TVBR Observation on the situación.

There's a little year-end bonus on the way for Nielsen shareholders of record as of Nov. 21. The nation's dominant provider of audience estimates and consumer research saw its Board of Directors declare a quarterly cash dividend, payable in early December.

Prolific Pivotal Research Group advertising analyst Brian Wieser is hardly a fan of broadcast TV, with respect to its ability to continue growing ad dollars that can contribute to profits. In his latest assessment of the biggest cable and TV networks, he's even more sour on the medium with respect to the ad climate. In short, growth is slowing — and lower margins will persist.

The FCC late Wednesday paused by 15 days the 180-Day transaction "Shot Clock" in the proceeding for transfer of control of Tribune Media Co. to Sinclair Broadcast Group to allow for additional comment. By midday Thursday, Tribune Media signaled it was ready to roll with its acquisition by Sinclair, leaving it up to the Federal government to make the next move. 

A potentially costly retransmission fee impasse between Viacom and Charter Communications' MVPD Spectrum has been averted, as the two companies on Wednesday approved a new deal. It's a win for Spectrum and its customers: The new retransmission fee agreement will put eight Viacom networks on Spectrum's most basic of cable TV tiers.

The independent measurement of subscription-based streaming content has taken a giant leap forward, as Nielsen has officially flipped the switch on Subscription Video On Demand (SVOD) Content Ratings. Nielsen calls this "a game-changing service," and it has received widespread support from key players in the TV industry. It puts a solid metric on Netflix viewership, for starters.

Brian and Kevin Lilly are widely known for their involvement with Lilly Broadcasting — a company recently making headlines for its still-unresolved impasse over a new retransmission fee accord with DISH Network. They are now making headlines for agreeing to acquire a UHF TV station in Michigan's Upper Peninsula that presently serves as a MeTV Network affiliate, while offering the digital multicast This TV network on its DT2 channel and the Antenna TV network on its DT3 signal.

One of the nation's largest media companies serving Hispanic consumers has added a UHF property set to shift channels as part of the FCC's post-Incentive Auction repack process. It's in Texas' state capital, where this company enjoys already owns two TV stations — along with a pair of FMs. Kalil & Co. served as the exclusive broker in this transaction.

The FOX brand and iHeartMedia have such a close relationship, one might wonder why Fox Broadcasting Company doesn't just buy the debt-laden audio entertainment giant. Many of its conservative talk hosts, distributed through iHeart's Premiere Networks and airing across all iHeart News/Talkers, can regularly be seen on FOX News. Now, FOX is teaming with iHeart for a new music competition series that ties the broadcast TV network to its music stations.

The OTT space is mushrooming, but not without notice from some big global entities. That's why broadcast TV station owners and program distributors may wish to monitor what becomes of Pluto TV. The OTT just received millions in funding from Samsung.

Add Univision Communications to the list of broadcast media companies who have fallen victim to retransmission fee negotiations gone bad with a video services provider in 2017. What's the issue? A Verizon statement issued late Monday claims that Univision is proposing an increase “of more than double what they charge for access to their channels today.”

Pivotal Research Group has analyzed trends associated with the use of television alongside commercial share trends for national media owners in the U.S. through the end of September 2017 and for Q3. This was done by Senior Research Analyst/Advertising Brian Wieser after complete data became available Monday from Nielsen. What's Wieser's conclusion? Viewing on internet-connected device is rising rapidly. But, overall viewing is sliding.

The Incentive Auction Task Force and the Media Bureau on Monday (10/16) affirmed the initial allocation of $1 billion in the TV Broadcaster Relocation Fund. The funds are the first designed to reimburse eligible full power and Class A broadcasters and multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) for expenses related to the construction of station facilities on reassigned channels.