Radio+Television Business Report

In the last week, NEXTGEN TV has gone live in such markets as Charlotte and Little Rock.

You can now add the California state capital to the list of cities where ATSC 3.0-powered television is now available for those that actually have the next-gen TV sets needed to get the signals.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

Although its shares are down from a five-year high seen in mid-April, TEGNA‘s stock price hasn’t been this good since September 2015, just months after it changed its name from Gannett and spun off its newspaper assets.

With a healthy 1-year target estimate handed to TEGNA by Wall Street analysts and a beneficial long-term prognosis in hand, company executives could be preparing a positive Q2 2021 earnings report. We now know when those results will be released.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

A TV attribution provider and ad monitoring company based in Paris is now a part of the Nielsen family of global data, measurement and analytics services.

For an undisclosed price, the Dutch company that is the dominant audience measurement and consumer data services firm in the U.S. is acquiring TVTY.

“TVTY brings a wide range of outcomes capabilities that improve TV campaign execution,” Nielsen says. “TVTY’s solutions enable advertisers and agencies to seamlessly optimize their spend based on the outcomes most important to their business.”

TVTY will complement and expand Nielsen’s TV Attribution and Ad Intel services.

Nielsen’s Chief Growth Officer and President, International, Sean Cohan says the purchase of TVTY aligns to Nielsen’s strategy to deliver cross-media outcomes as a complement to audience measurement. He says, “TVTY bolsters Nielsen’s ability to size an audience with analytics. Together we will be powering a better media future for marketers.”

Eliott Reilhac, TVTY’s CEO, comments, “We believe that TV advertising will be increasingly bought and optimized based on business outcomes. We are grateful for the passionate team, partners, and clients that have allowed us to build the platform needed for this new reality. Today, we are humbled to join the Nielsen family, and we know there is no better place to achieve our vision on a global scale.”

TVTY has a U.S. presence in New York and operates in more than 20 countries worldwide.

The company owns and operates four FM stations in Kentucky’s largest market.

Now, it is welcoming an individual as President of the station group. He’s no stranger to one of those FMs, as he managed the property during the 1990s under Prism Radio Partners ownership.

He’s also one of the founding members of the former Triad Broadcasting executive team.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

Havas Media Group (HMG) has launched a program designed to help advertisers direct more revenue to support Black-owned — and Hispanic-owned radio stations — across the United States.

BE SURE TO FOLLOW RBR+TVBR ON TWITTER!

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

What happens when your broadcast TV duopoly is too successful?

Just ask Gray Television. The FCC on Wednesday (7/1) issued a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture against the company for its “apparent violation” of its Top Four rule.

This puts the initial success and plan of action for its Alaska operations in question.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

For a generation of Boston radio listeners, the call letters are very familiar. Today, WMEX is associated with a Class D AM at 1510 kHz licensed to Quincy, Mass.

Now, this incarnation of WMEX is about to be sold. Who’s the buyer?

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

On December 30, 2020, the sale of a former Tribune Media property serving the Big Apple formally closed. As a result, The E.W. Scripps Company was no longer the owner of The CW Network’s New York flagship, WPIX-11.

How Scripps ended up with the station, and how it ended up selling it, is a story of its own. Originally, Sinclair Broadcast Group planned to operate WPIX via a Joint Sales Agreement with Cunningham Broadcasting Corp., and its officer and director, Michael Anderson. That arrangement ended up in flames, triggered by former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s concerns over “sham” transactions created to push Sinclair’s planned merger with Tribune Media through the regulatory test.

Now, the current ownership of WPIX has come under scrutiny. But, it isn’t the Commission that’s complaining. Rather, it is one of the largest MVPD operators in the nation — and the owner of two direct competitors to WPIX in the Big Apple.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

Travel between Terre Haute and Indianapolis, and you’ll cross Putnam County, Indiana.

Here, a 3kw FM offering Adult Contemporary programming is the local home of Indianapolis Colts football, Indiana Pacers basketball and St. Louis Cardinals baseball.

And, it is about to be sold to a new owner.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

Since 2016, she has served as the Director of Sales for the Nexstar Media Group-owned FOX and The CW Network affiliates serving the second-largest market in Colorado.

Now, she’s being promoted to VP/GM.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

Behind Atlanta, it’s the largest metropolitan area in the U.S. South.

And, its residents now have access to ATSC 3.0-powered next generation broadcast TV signals.

NEXTGEN TV is now available in Charlotte.

Those with select new TV models manufactured by LG Electronics, Samsung, and Sony are now able to tune to ATSC 3.0-powered signals for Cox Media Group’s unaffiliated WAXN-64 and ABC affiliate WSOC-9, Nexstar Media Group’s FOX affiliated WJZY-17, Gray Television’s CBS affiliated WBTV-3 and TEGNA-owned NBC affiliate WCNC-36.

Its spoken word stations are among the most listened-to commercial radio properties in North America.

Now, the company formerly known as Entercom is moving forward with taking its news brands further into the digital realm. To do so, it’s committing to journalists in 8 newsrooms across the U.S. to help shepherd a “multiplatform transformation” for Audacy.

This, Philadelphia-headquartered Audacy says, allows it to offer more original digital news content as well as in-depth reporting. This will complement breaking news broadcast coverage.

And, it undoubtedly adds to the exclusive content on the Audacy app, which had been Radio.com.

A centralized digital team dedicated to news is taking shape. This will see Audacy add more than 50 journalists in eight of its newsrooms across the country.

“This coordinated, multi-platform focus will allow the company to produce an array of fresh audio and local reporting that will be distributed across the Audacy network,” the company said on Wednesday (7/7).

Is Audacy hiring the journalists, or are they adding duties to their current responsibilities at all-News and News/Talk radio stations the company owns? RBR+TVBR’s request for clarification was not immediately responded to.

What is clear is that Audacy will create original podcasts and “other specialty digital content” that will add to the local reporting at Audacy all-News and News/Talk stations.

Audacy EVP/Programming Jeff Sottolano is overseeing the initiative.

“The past year has underscored the crucial role of journalism and the demand for trusted quality content has never been higher,” Sottolano said. “Audacy’s local news brands have been delivering on-demand news and information for decades and are now poised to build on that foundation. While other news organizations are downsizing, this further investment will allow us to leverage the credibility of our news brands to expand our reach and engagement while continuing to deliver the premier coverage our audience is accustomed to and relies on.”

Plans also call for an original national weekly podcast that highlights “the most pressing story of the week” and draws on reporting and interview content from across the Audacy network of news brands; daily in-depth podcasts and on-demand audio that explore local stories and issues that most affect listeners’ lives; as well as custom newsletters and in-app experiences that offer audiences a chance to explore areas of interest and interact directly with Audacy brands.

Additional details will follow in the coming months.

It markets itself as “a first-of-its-kind” cloud-based television advertising
tool that requests and receives ads from programmatic digital ad exchanges to
enable linear cable television ad insertion by using existing cable and broadcast TV
infrastructure.

Now, it is one step closer to closing the gap between linear TV and digital advertising, as this Viamedia-owned division has just snagged its third patent — a move that the company says solves “last mile” challenges for marketers.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

A series of FCC filings made late Tuesday confirm that West Virginia Radio Corp., the entity owned in a partnership between Dale Miller and David and John Raese, is about to get a complexion change in its attributable interest visage.

One of these partners is cashing out.

Miller, who serves as President/CEO of the Morgantown, W. Va.-based owner of 32 radio stations, is selling his equity interest in the company to the Raeses.

It’s a sign that Miller may be ready to retire, concluding a storied 44-year career at one of the region’s strongest and most influential audio media companies.

Miller joined West Virginia Radio Corp. in 1977. At that time, its holdings were comprised of WAJR-AM & FM in Morgantown. In 1981, the FM shifted to Contemporary Hit Radio, taking the call sign WVAQ. The station remains a nationally recognized success story, known as the home of the late programming executive Lacy Neff.

West Virginia Radio Corp. would grow substantially under Miller’s leadership, growing to 28 radio stations between 1993 and 2014. A former past president of the West Virginia Broadcasters Association, Miller was awarded the association’s highest honor when he was named the WVBA Broadcaster of the Year in 1993.

But, it is the Raese family that has been tied to Radio since 1940. That’s when John and David’s grandparents, Agnes and Herbert Greer, signed WAJR-AM on the air. The Raese brothers assumed control of the company following Agnes Greer’s 1972 death.

Three filings seeking Commission approval show that Miller’s decision to hand his shares of West Virginia Radio Corp. to the Raese brothers came in early June.

Terms call the Raese brothers acquiring Miller’s shares in West Virginia Radio Company of Raleigh; of the Alleghenies; and of Salem; for a combined value of $314,000. The allocation is as follows:

West Virginia Radio Corp. today continues to own WAJR-AM and WVAQ-FM, plus WKKW-FM in Morgantown. Its holdings also include stations in Beckley, Charleston, Clarksburg, Berkeley Springs, Martinsburg and Elkins, W. Va.; and Cumberland, Md.

What is real? How do you define real?

When it comes to true and false information spread on the internet, or via word of mouth, TEGNA believes it has a brand-new brand that can help the public distinguish the two.

And, it’s hired a trio of journalists to help disseminate fact from fiction.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

It’s a Fargo, N.D., based media company that does business as Flag Family Media.

And, it is the latest buyer of radio stations — and one of just a handful of non-religious, for-profit entities that have emerged as investors in additional AM and FM stations in the last 18 months.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

Radio and television broadcasting companies that publicly trade on Wall Street were largely down on Tuesday.

RBR+TVBR‘s recent coverage of FM station sales by Dartmouth College and Purdue University led retired Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth Member Peter Tannenwald to write a Letter to the Editor addressing a reference of the August 2017 decision by the entity that controlled the former WBRU-FM in Providence to sell the Alternative station.

As he explains, the vote to sell WBRU came from the students that maintained oversight of the station — not a university board of directors.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

The latest Media Monitors Spot 10 TV report is out, and it shows Procter & Gamble Co. making a new push designed to boost sales of one of its best-known brands.

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The President/CEO of the NAB says the nation’s biggest lobbying organization representing broadcast media “is gravely concerned” by recent incidents of violence directed against broadcast journalists who are covering local news.

“A cornerstone of American democracy is the right of the free press to document the stories and events shaping our communities and our nation,” Gordon Smith said. “Journalists should be afforded the respect to safely provide this valuable service to the community without fear of violence, intimidation or harassment.”

Please Login to view this premium content. (Not a member? Join Today!)