TV/Cable News

The locally owned company that owns two stations in the Raleigh-Durham market, including its current NBC affiliate, and a TV station in the Wilmington, N.C., market, has reached a new long-term retransmission fee agreement with DISH Network. It's the second tussle with the DBS provider since January 2015.

A review of the 2017-18 Nielsen Local Television Market Universe Estimates shows Houston moving up in rank once again. Conversely, the San Francisco Bay Area is moving downward, thanks to a 12-month DMA population loss of 36,450.

If there ever was a big week for big department stores, this was it. No less than three national retailers boost their ad spend at broadcast television — a sign that attracting consumer attention through fall premieres on the Big Four networks, or on live sporting events, is still key for strong ROI.

Two Class A television stations serving the New York metropolitan area and the Chicago DMA are for sale. Patrick Communications will benefit from their sale, as they have been retained by the seller to make a deal happen.

The company behind a network of independent religious noncommercial TV stations in Arkansas recently petitioned the FCC to modify the local satellite carriage TV market of one of its stations licensed to the city of Jonesboro. It wants in to two other DMAs, giving it access to DISH Network and DirecTV systems. The DBS players said it was "partially feasible," and the FCC's Media Bureau has now ruled on the matter.

The largest affiliate partner for Univision Communications' two broadcast TV networks has solidified a new agreement that will ensure its Univision and UniMás stations keep their programming in place through 2026.

In the final days of August, the parent company of a home shopping channel agreed to sell its full-power digital TV station serving Boston. At the same time, a channel-sharing agreement (CSA) was forged by the buyer to allow a company that collected millions in the recently concluded FCC incentive auction to use one-third of this digital station's spectrum. The asset purchase agreement and CSA recitals have finally found their way to the FCC via a Form 314 filing made today, with Media Venture Partners serving as the exclusive broker.

The trading of Channel Sharing Arrangements secured by companies that shed their broadcast TV stations in the FCC's recently concluded incentive auction just may be the next big boost for media brokers eager to buy and sell, and collect their commissions. The latest "CSA" to be dealt involves an affiliate of The CW that fetched $105,731,122 and is now dealing its post-auction channel sharing to Hearst Television.

Comcast Corp. has launched a plan that will swap out a new series of senior notes for up to $4 billion of its existing Comcast and NBCUniversal notes. While there's a lot of Wall Street jargon, one thing is clear: Comcast's debt extends out some 35 years.

In last week’s Media Monitors Cable Spot Ten report, GEICO was No. 1 once again, while a big QSR moved into the No. 2 spot. However, it's the activity of a big-box retailer faced with competing not only against Macy's but also Walmart, Amazon and online retailers, that is worth noting.

There will be no "Big Bang" involving any affiliate switches in some 32 Nielsen DMAs across the U.S. for Gray Television. A new multi-year renewal of the publicly traded broadcast company's station affiliation agreements with CBS Television has been reached.

Just days after reaching a new retransmission fee agreement with Citadel Communications for ABC affiliates in Providence, and Lincoln, Neb., DISH Network has, by law, been forced to yank stations owned by Lilly Broadcasting off its lineups as yet another retrans fight has erupted. This one had the ACA ticked off: CBS and ABC stations serving Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands were impacted for a brief period.

WABC-7 and Disney-branded cable channels will remain on Altice USA cable TV systems, thanks to an retransmission fee agreement reached "in principle" Sunday evening. The accord puts to rest fears that Altice's Optimum systems in Westchester County and on Long Island would have been forced, by law, to remove the channels from its respective lineups.

DISH Network is giving its subscribers a whole new way to experience some Stranger Things or take a trip to Ozark. The DBS provider on Friday began offering a whole-home 4K Netflix experience to its customers.