A news network dedicated to covering “the unique perspectives, challenges, and successes of Black and Brown communities” has secured its latest wide-scale distribution agreement.
As such, subscribers to one major MVPD will now have access to the channel led by President/CEO Princell Hair.
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The latest Media Monitors Spot Ten Radio report is out, and it shows a big leader for the week ending December 12, 2021.
No, it’s not for a big retailer at Christmastime. And no, it’s not an auto insurance specialist.
Rather, it is a maker of a COVID-19 vaccine and an approved booster.
In a sign of the times, Pfizer leads all in the latest Spot Ten Radio report, and by a sizable margin over No. 2 Indeed, the job search and employment portal.
State Farm, eBay and McDonald’s are also big players this week, and are their respective category leaders, by far, at the AM and FM radio stations tracked by iHeartMedia-owned Media Monitors.
At 103.9 MHz on Maryland’s Eastern Shore is a heritage rhythmic Top 40 station that in recent years has been owned by the Ron Stone-led Adams Radio Group. In June, Stone indicated that the station would be sold, as part of a wholesale exit from the Salisbury-Ocean City market.
Now, it’s official: Adams has spun the last remaining assets it had on the Delmarva Peninsula.
For $550,000, Adams is selling WOCQ-FM 103.9 in Berlin, Md., and FM Translators W282AW at 104.3 in Salisbury and W286BB at 105.1 in Ocean Pines to the Craig Jahelka-led parent of WBOC Inc., known as Draper Media.
It follows the sale of WGBG-FM 107.7 in Fruitland, Md., for $600,000 and the $1.6 million spin of WZBH-FM 93.5 in Millsboro, Del., to Draper Media/WBOC Inc. and the consummation in late June 2021 of the $300,000 sale of WUSX-FM 98.5, with a signal covering Salisbury, Md.; Georgetown, Del.; and the Bethany Beach, Del.; area; to Mark Giuliani-led DataTech Digital.
How does the acquisition of WOCQ fit within local ownership limits? Thanks to BIA Advisory Services, an adjustment of the market definition for Salisbury-Ocean City was made in response to Nielsen Audio inadvertently counting some Draper stations toward the market, although they do not serve the market. This would pair WOCQ with WZBH, WGBG and WBOC-FM.
WBOC Inc. and the Draper family have long been known as the owner of WBOC-16. But WBOC Inc. doesn’t just own this longtime station, which has been a CBS affiliate since 1956. It also owns and operates “FOX21 Delmarva,” housed on a WBOC subchannel; WBOC-LD 42, a Telemundo affiliate; and WRDE-LD 31, an NBC affiliate since June 2014 that filled a local network assignment gap, with WBAL-11 and WRC-4 from Baltimore and Washington, respectively, serving Southern Maryland and WCAU-10 serving Delaware prior to WRDE’s sign-on.
Then, there is the WBOC Inc. radio properties, which had been sold off prior to August 2015. That’s when RBR+TVBR reported on the company’s acquisition of WOLC-FM, in Princess Anne, Md. from Maranatha Inc. The station became WBOC-FM, today an Adult Contemporary station.
The Draper family’s re-entry into radio was accelerated in March 2018. That’s when WBOC Inc., under the direction of Draper Media President Craig Jahelka, closed on its $700,000 purchase of the following stations from MTS Broadcasting in a transaction brokered by Patrick Communications:
On November 28, every FOX Network affiliate and owned-and-operated station in the U.S. aired what appeared to be a 45-second promotional message that, in its first three seconds, features the Emergency Alert System (EAS) tone. The penalty could be severe for FOX as the FCC investigates the incident.
How big could that fine get? A proposed financial penalty presented to Beasley Media Group for a single instance at a Talk station serving Las Vegas provides a hint at what could come for FOX.
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The fate of Roger Wahl, who could be stripped of the ownership of his Class A FM radio station in Pennsylvania, will become that much clearer come January 13, 2022.
That is the date of an initial status conference to be conducted virtually as part of a Hearing Designation Order led by the FCC’s Administrative Law Judge, Jane Hinckley Halprin.
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LATHAM, N.Y. — Since March 2015, he’d been the VP/GM of TEGNA‘s FOX and The CW Network affiliates serving the Constitution State.
Now, he is joining Hubbard Broadcasting to take the top role at the NBC affiliate serving New York’s Capital District.
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There’s very little in common between CBS and iHeartMedia these days. They’re no longer competitors in the radio industry, and that’s perhaps one reason why a pair of up-and-coming air personalities in the nation’s biggest market have been given the all-clear to be one group of contestants on the upcoming season of one of the CBS Television Network’s top reality competition series.
WKTU-FM 103.5 in New York nighttime pair Lulu y Lala — a.k.a. twin sisters Marissa & Marianela Gonzalez — are taking their talents on the road, if you will, by seeking to win “The Amazing Race.”
The Latina air personalities are 10-year veterans of radio and TV, and first found fame at Univision as correspondents on the network entertainment show “El Gordo y La Flaca,” following a stint alongside Luis Jimenez in mornings at WXNY-FM “X96.3” in New York. They then worked as co-hosts on the “Ty Loves NY” morning show on what is today WNYL-FM in New York; at the time, CBS Radio owned it and competed against iHeartRadio’s WKTU and Z100 with a Top 40 format.
In November 2014, the Cuban-Salvadoran pair moved to Miami, where they took afternoon hosting duties at Cox Media Group’s WFLC “Hits 97.3” in Miami. Lulu y Lala returned to New York for the WKTU job exactly five years ago.
Viewers to “The Amazing Race” can catch episodes featuring the women starting January 5, 2022. The competition show features pairs of contestants engaging in a series of challenges, both mental and physical, across the globe. The first group to arrive at the final destination will win “The Amazing Race” and the $1 million prize.
The 33rd season will kick off with a special two-hour premiere on January 5, from 8pm-10pm ET/PT. From January 12, it will take the 9pm ET/PT Wednesday time slot. “The Amazing Race” is available to stream live and on-demand on Paramount+.
“I am beyond excited to be part of Season 33 of ‘The Amazing Race’,” said Lala. “I promise you will see a whole new side of Lulu & Lala! It’s a special season for sure!” “She’s right! With Lala’s lack of sense of direction and my OCD on wanting to control everything, this season is one you don’t want to miss,” said Lulu. “We hope we make our family and listeners proud!”
The 33rd iteration of The Amazing Race began production on February 22, 2020. Leg 1 was in London, with social media photos showing contestants at John F. Kennedy International Airport and at Charlotte Douglas International Airport. Destinations include Scotland, France, Switzerland and Portugal. After three legs, production was shut down. It resumed in fall 2021, and recently wrapped up production, TVLine reports.
“We implemented many new safety features that made this historic season possible, including having the cast and crew fly by private chartered plane,” co-creator and executive producer Elise Doganieri told TVLine in a statement.
Joining Lulu y Lala are married teachers from New Jersey, a married couple from Charlotte, male childhood friends from Sacramento, best friends from mid-Missouri, a father and daughter from Michigan, a Twentysomething long-distance-dating pair, a pair of female flight attendants, “internet personalities” Kim and Penn Holderness, “YouTube” stars Taylor and Isaiah Green-Jones, and singing police officers from Buffalo.
In three weeks, New Year’s Eve will be here, ushering in the end of 2021.
If your TV station is planning their on-air, online and social coverage of New Year’s Eve, perhaps this year’s official Times Square New Year’s Eve content, courtesy of Countdown Entertainment and the Times Square Alliance, is of interest.
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The fate of Gigi Sohn, the White House’s nominee for the fifth seat on the Commission, appears to be a bit cloudier. An Executive Session of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation will not consider nomination during a December 15 executive session.
What does this mean for the liberal Democrat assailed by key Senate Republicans for President Trump-era Tweets lambasting Fox News as “state-sponsored propaganda”?
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He’s been VP/GM of TV stations in Palm Springs, Calif.; and GM of News-Press & Gazette Co. stations serving Columbia, Mo.
He’s also been associated with such stations as WTTG-5 in Washington, D.C.; WBFS-33 and WCIX-6 in Miami; and KPHO-5 in Phoenix over a career that spans 41 years. Now, he’s working for Brian and Pat Lane.
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The “Great Resignation” has defined 2021. Many employees are rethinking what work means to them, how they are valued, and how they spend their time. As workers hit the reset button, sales organizations have a great responsibility to reevaluate the way they attract and retain talent.
Those are the opening words to the 15-page Media Sales Report 2021 from the Center for Sales Strategy, which notes that, according to expert prognosticators, “we are facing a significant war on talent.” In fact, 53% of sales managers already admit recruitment is the
hardest part of their jobs today.
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It’s always great to chat with a media broker about the deal-making environment for radio and TV. From our vantage point it’s … um … pretty terrible. A Class A in New York just got sold for $51 million less than it was purchased for. There’s a squabble in Orlando between a $6 million valuation for a FM that covers the metro and a $10 million asking price for it.
What is Bob Heymann’s assessment of where FM station valuations are, and is that seriously harming the marketplace for a longer period than some may have anticipated? That’s just one question he responds to in the latest RBR+TVBR InFOCUS Podcast, presented by dot.FM.
The buyer may be tied to Tennessee, but it is seeking FCC approval to own an unbuilt construction permit for a low-power television facility in the city that is home to the University of Florida.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. — A pair of House Democrats have teamed together to reintroduce legislation that they say is designed to ensure that community television operations continue to receive the resources they need to educate and inform viewers in the cities and towns where they operate.
Companion legislation was also introduced by a pair of Democrats in the U.S. Senate.
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The FCC’s Media Bureau continues to work fast and furious on adopting orders and, in many cases, handing licensees a forfeiture notice — a move that could bring the Commission hundreds of thousands of dollars, put toward its annual operating budget.
Now, the Commission has signed off on two Consent Decrees — with no financial penalty, or contribution to the U.S. Treasury, to worry about — handed to a pair of broadcasting companies devoted to super-serving Spanish-language listeners.
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NEW YORK — Advanced television advertising company OpenAP has brought to market a new cross-platform measurement framework backed by national TV publishers that is designed to provide advertisers with more choice in measurement tools.
How so? XPm can help facilitate “an open and independent measurement ecosystem,” OpenAP says.
For TV publishers, the benefit is a “common solution to proactively deliver on marketplace demands,” OpenAP notes. Importantly, it shifts TV from siloed measurement of
linear and streaming viewership to ID-based targeting and measurement.
XPm is being described by OpenAP as the collective TV publisher response to the Association of National Advertisers’ (ANA) call to evolve to a cross-screen media measurement framework for marketers.
As OpenAP explains, XPm is built on the central TV identity spine, OpenID, and powers the sharing of campaign exposure data with third-party measurement companies in privacy safe environments. The framework enables the resolution of data to OpenIDs so that unified ID-based audiences can be used for both targeting and measurement, and it facilitates cross-platform reporting on campaigns that span multiple publishers across both linear and premium digital video viewing environments. As a result, advertisers whose campaign was run using OpenIDs will benefit from post-campaign XPm reporting insights that include baseline metrics such as deduplicated unique cross-platform reach, total cross-platform impressions and average frequency per OpenID reached.
OpenAP CEO David Levy notes, “Holistic cross-screen advertising has been an elusive challenge that publishers, measurement providers and advertisers alike have been grappling with for too long. New innovations have made it possible to use the same IDs for campaign targeting and as for measurement, giving marketers the ability to understand not only how many people were reached but who specifically was reached across all screens. We believe cross-platform measurement at the ID level is the future for TV advertising, and we’re thrilled to link arms with our partners to bring optionality and more choice of solutions to market.”
The VAB, as part of its new Measurement Innovation Task Force, will operate as the governing body of XPm in order to create common standards and establish controls on how data is used on behalf of TV publishers. Measurement company requirements will be defined by the Task Force, with all solutions subject to validation and verification by the VAB to ensure transparency of methodology and technical integration with OpenID.
Participating XPm measurement companies include Comscore, iSpot, Nielsen, VideoAmp and 605, with Innovid offering enhancements to digital measurement for use in XPm reporting. GroupM, dentsu and Horizon Media have also joined as the first agencies to pilot the framework for XPm reporting insights.
VAB President/CEO Sean Cunningham notes, “This is a seminal moment for the TV ecosystem, which is only just at the beginning of an era of tremendous innovation, collaboration and transparency. The future of video advertising will be built on and shaped by modern measurement solutions that allow for competition in the marketplace and more choice for advertisers — which is delivered by this initiative on an open stage. The coming months and year ahead will be defined as a period of game-changing advancement for our industry.”
In development since early 2020, XPm has undergone what OpenAP calls “an extensive development stage to establish the necessary connections with measurement companies, data providers and publisher systems and entered beta in late summer 2021. “OpenAP will collaborate with all involved parties in a continued XPm reporting beta period to review
data, test results and collect further inputs from both publishers and advertisers ahead of the target launch of XPm reporting in Q1 2022,” it notes.
(PODCAST BUSINESS JOURNAL) — Some 125 members working in the iHeartPodcast Network division say they “have been encouraged to embrace the dynamism of start-up culture without any of the associated benefits.”
They have signed union cards to organize with the Writers Guild of America.
Specifically, The Writers Guild of America, East has called on management to voluntarily recognize the union. iHeartMedia corporate had no comment on the matter. Podcast Business Journal asked the Writers Guild for specific names behind the letter (below); the co-owned publication to Radio + Television Business Report was told to attribute it to “the iHeartPodcast Union.”
CEO Bob Pittman has said during iHeartMedia earnings calls that the podcast division is profitable for the company. The company reported $156 million in podcast revenue through the first nine months of 2021.
The approximately 125-member iHeartPodcast Network Bargaining Committee includes producers, editors, researchers, writers, and hosts based in Atlanta, Los Angeles and New York City.
The iHeartPodcast Network includes shows such as “Stuff You Should Know,” “Fake Doctors, Real Friends,” “The Ron Burgundy Podcast,” and “Disgraceland.”
Here’s the letter the iHeartPodcast Union wrote to management: We, the podcast producers, editors, researchers, writers, and hosts of iHeartMedia, are thrilled to announce that we are unionizing with the Writers Guild of America, East. Months of discussion with our colleagues have clarified some things: First, we love the community we have created at iHeart. We work shoulder to shoulder with some of the most creative minds in the business, who have come to feel more like family. We are devoted and passionate storytellers who take pride in our ability to provide our listeners with entertaining, thought-provoking audio content and, most importantly, companionship. However, during difficult times, we are reminded that while the iHeart Digital Audio Group prides itself on its relative autonomy and ability to adapt to the shifting needs of the marketplace—much like a start-up—we work under the capacity constraints of a legacy broadcast conglomerate. Essentially, we have been encouraged to embrace the dynamism of start-up culture without any of the associated benefits. Throughout the unprecedented challenges of the last two years, we managed to seamlessly transition to remote work; our adaptability helped the company not just sustain, but thrive during a period of economic uncertainty and social unrest. During team calls, town halls, and official email communications from leadership, we are frequently reminded of the financial gains that we helped make possible. Bob Pittman, CEO and Chairman of iHeartMedia, reported during last month’s quarterly earnings call that Digital Audio revenue increased by 77 percent compared to 2020. Our division’s significant growth was “driven primarily by continuing increases in demand for digital advertising and the continued growth of podcasting,” where revenue is up 184 percent compared to 2020. Unfortunately, those gains have not reached the creators working round-the-clock to keep our audience of more than 30 million monthly listeners actively engaged. With hundreds of shows across all categories and genres, many of us are doing the work of multiple employees, and the huge volume of content we are responsible for is not met with equitable compensation. Furthermore, we lack transparency in workplace decision making, meaningful initiatives toward diversity and inclusion, fairness in managerial relationships, and clarity in divisions of labor. While we are proud to be an essential part of iHeartMedia’s success over the past few years, we are keenly aware of significant internal pay disparities between similarly positioned individuals within the company. And across the board, iHeartMedia’s overall compensation and benefits standards are wholly insufficient when compared to the greater podcast and scripted audio market. Due to these working conditions, the creators of iHeart’s podcasts have banded together in order to help determine the best path forward so that iHeart can remain competitive, retain existing talent, and attract new voices to the network, all while creating a more equitable, transparent, and democratic workplace. Key elements of these goals include, but are not limited to: Appropriate compensation and benefits
Lowell Peterson, Executive Director of the Writers Guild of America, East, added, “We are pleased to welcome the storytellers at the iHeartPodcast Network to the Guild. A union is vital to ensuring podcast workers are able to build sustainable careers in an industry where their contributions have been essential to the sector’s continued rapid growth.”
NEW YORK — Hearst Television‘s Senior Director of Finance, based at the company’s New York City headquarters, has been promoted to Vice President.
Earning the new role: a 31-year finance veteran at Hearst Television.
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When it comes to hot topics in the video entertainment world, SVOD is perhaps tops.
For 2022, Deloitte predicts that with U.S. and global streaming services continuing to expand, the amplified competition “is creating abundant consumer choice and accelerating churn.” As a result, Deloitte predicts that in 2022 at least 150 million SVOD paid subscriptions will be canceled worldwide, with churn rates of up to 30% per market. Is this an opportunity for over-the-air TV?
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