Industry News

The affiliates associations for ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX television stations have collectively filed a petition for clarification of the FCC’s Report and Order on its sponsorship identification requirements for foreign government-provided programming on broadcast UHF and/or VHF facilities.

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The sixth day of active bidding in the FCC’s “Auction 109” concludes with the 26th round of activity, a 30-minute window between 4:30pm-5pm Eastern.

Six more rounds of bidding are on the slate for Wednesday (8/4).

What’s the current snapshot from Washington? The nation’s No. 1 owner of radio stations could wind up winning a big FM in the capital of the Golden State, filling a void left by the company formerly known as Entercom.

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Gray Television just selected her to succeed the retiring Frank Brady, an individual at the helm of an NBC affiliate in West Virginia.

She, like Brady, has been at the station — WVVA-6 in Beckley, W. Va. — for 15 years.

What does the longevity of these tenures say about life at a small-market Big Four affiliate? Listen to this RBR+TVBR InFOCUS Podcast, presented by dot.FM and hosted by Adam R Jacobson, and you’ll get the answer … and more!

Listen to “The InFOCUS Podcast: Charity Holman, WVVA” on Spreaker.

When it comes to retransmission consent agreement battles between broadcast TV stations and MVPDs, DirecTV under AT&T ownership was a difficult entity to negotiate with for a bevy of UHF and VHF owners.

With Tuesday’s creation of a new company named DIRECTV, following its spin from AT&T, will broadcast TV companies including Cox Media Group, TEGNA, Hearst and Cowles benefit when their next round of individual retrans talks start?

With private equity group TPG Capital fueling the $7.6 billion transaction, the DirecTV, AT&T TV and U-verse video services are no longer owned and operated by AT&T.

This creates a whole new company with approximately 15.4 million premium video subscribers at the end of Q2. To make the deal happen, AT&T received 70% in DirecTV; thus it remains the majority owner. TPG has a 30% interest in DirecTV, and paid $1.8 billion for the shares.

Nevertheless, DirecTV is not a unit of AT&T as of today.

Should broadcast TV companies with a difficult retrans history get excited? No. The DirecTV board will include CEO Bill Morrow and voting members Steve McGaw and Thaddeus Arroyo, appointed by AT&T.

MORE FROM THE RBR+TVBR ARCHIVES

Not included in this transaction are WarnerMedia’s HBO Max streaming platform and regional sports networks, both of which are part of the pending WarnerMedia-Discovery transaction; Vrio (AT&T’s Latin American video operations, which are being sold to Grupo Werthein); U-verse network assets; and AT&T’s Sky Mexico investment. DIRECTV will continue to offer HBO Max to subscribers along with any bundled wireless or broadband services and associated customer discounts.

If you receive your cable TV services from Cox Communications, there’s no fear of losing access to any ViacomCBS-owned station anytime soon.

In fact, Cox customers are gaining access to the company’s collection of streaming services.

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In the words of Zacks Equity Research, the second quarter 2021 results from Discovery Inc. “delivered earnings and revenue surprises” to the tune of 53.7% and 3.1%, respectively.

Yet, Discovery shares dipped below $27 a share in early trading on Tuesday and were off by 5% as of 11am Eastern. What are investors concerned about?

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College sports media company Learfield IMG College is simplifying its name. It will now be called Learfield.

The name Learfield derives from co-founders Clyde Lear and Derry Brownfield, who started a farm radio network in Missouri in 1972. A series of business combinations and acquisitions had led to the most recent name, Learfield IMG College.

The company is a media and technology services supplier in intercollegiate athletics; its specialties include sports multimedia rights, licensing, technology and data.

“We think the new brand visually distinguishes the company in the same way that the expertise and passion of our people differentiate the experience of working with Learfield and its affiliated brands,” said CEO Cole Gahagan in the announcement.

The change includes a new logo. “The icon represents the ‘pennant’ prominent in company logomarks combined with a stylized ‘number one’ to create an active L design,” according to the announcement.

[Related story: Randy Williams of Learfield, shown below, talks about gear in our special series on microphones in radio applications.]

The post Learfield IMG College Is Now Simply Learfield appeared first on Radio World.

One year ago, Townsquare Media CEO Bill Wilson and CFO Stu Rosenstein were sharing with analysts and investors its strategy to cut corporate expenses while holding in to its Townsquare Interactive team at the local level. The reason: Keeping staff would put the “Digital First” local media company at the best competitive advantage once the recovery began.

The plan has paid off, and it is fueling the company’s return to 2019 levels with a greater quest of exceeding them. But, is Q3 falling short of the performance seen two years ago — setting up a difficult narrative for Townsquare’s peers?

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As of August 16, Apollo Global Management-controlled Cox Media Group will have a new EVP/General Counsel and Corporate Secretary.

He reports to CMG President/CEO Dan York and will depart his role as a Partner in the Technology Transactions and M&A practice groups at a globally recognized law firm.

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The first of the broadcast media industry’s second quarter 2021 results arrived just before sunrise Tuesday (8/3), as Townsquare Media released its financial report card for the three months ending June 30.

How did the “digital first” owner of 322 radio stations located in markets outside the top 50 perform? Townsquare Media’s adjusted EBITDA in Q2 was the highest seen in company history.

That’s just one of the positives that helped the company sail past its own estimates and those of Zacks Equity Research.

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