Radio & Television Business Report

In a move the Baltimore-headquartered company says is emblematic of its increased news investment, Sinclair Inc. is immediately expanding its nationally distributed news program to time slots at a dozen TV stations where, until now, syndicated fare had been airing.

 Rob Bonta shared that the agreement with the company led by CEO David Ellison "includes court enforceable guardrails to resolve the antitrust issues at the center of our case, protect competition and consumer choice, and provide for the production of significantly more films and a minimum of $1.5 billion in additional investment in domestic film production."

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on Friday deferred a request from a quartet of Democrats running for elected office in the 2026 mid-term cycle that would have forced the FCC to issue a swift ruling on whether or not the "lowest unit rate" includes Political Action Committees or is limited to the candidates themselves.

The Media Bureau's Video Division has granted the company's Petition for Declaratory Ruling — triggering criticism from the lone Democrat serving as a FCC Commissioner and from a fired Commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission. It puts partial ownership of CBS in the hands of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the FCC have announced that they will be teaming up to conduct a nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System. Word of the test, scheduled for mid-November, came via a Public Notice from the Commission's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau.

It is being hailed as a "landmark partnership," and it comes as the sport continues to gain momentum beyond high school and collegiate sporting venues ahead of the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. The deal creates a first-of-its-kind audio media category for USA Lacrosse and includes exclusive content opportunities.

Distribution has always been carried as a fixed cost, a line item managed down rather than a platform that earns. Moving to IP changes that math. Uplinks, edge storage and dish permitting come off the balance sheet, and ad insertion moves into the cloud where localization becomes a revenue conversation instead of an engineering one.

The owner of a Class B AM serving the capital of the state of Washington and nearby cities west of Tacoma has agreed to acquire a Class A FM from a company that was forced to sell all of its assets per a Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation.

Picture this: It's November 4. The election-fueled ad dollar bump is over. What's next for broadcast radio and TV, given the core advertising challenges seen by some and the National ad-dollar impairment experienced by many? A Forecast 2027 session delivers the tools to build the bridge to take you past the proverbial politicial cliff.

On July 22, the FCC adopted rules to auction another 160 MHz of upper C-band spectrum by July 2027. Incumbents will be required to vacate before new wireless service begins, in the top 75 markets by December 2030 and everywhere else by July 2031. Here is what that timeline actually asks of a radio network.

The ongoing wind-down of Mary Quass-led NRG Media has continued, with the apparent sale of four radio brands serving the Waterloo-Cedar Falls, Iowa, market.  The buyer? Look no further than the man who founded Civic Media, as Cedar Basin Media is born through a transaction signed off by Sage Weil.

The FCC has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that opens up a comment window offering interested parties a say in whether Georgia Public Broadcasting may upgrade its PBS Member station serving Savannah, Ga., with a shift from a VHF channel to a more powerful UHF facility.

The JIC said each of the three providers met the JIC's baseline threshold for transactability across Total Households, Advanced Audiences and Personified Demographics. The evaluation was conducted by data, analytics and research leaders representing media agencies, national TV publishers and independent consultants.

It's a move that provides advertisers with a more complete view of how audiences move across streaming and other channels. And, it sees a data integration agreement come to fruition for Roku and Horizon Media.

Newly research research from Premion and Advertiser Perceptions demonstrates that as sports viewing shifts across screens, advertisers are increasingly following those fans to streaming TV. The result? "Big Tech" is pocketing from marketers and consumers alike as it delivers big ticket play-by-play on a near-exclusive basis.

Some 73% of respondents in a newly released Pew-Knight Initiative study said press freedom is extremely or very important to the well-being of society. However, when asked to prioritize press freedom or accuracy, 53% said preventing inaccurate reporting is more important — even if it limits press freedom.