Headlines
Local News Sources Are Still Drying Up, But There’s Growth In Digital Sites In Metro Areas
A total of 127 newspapers closed last year, while the 81 digital sites gained was the most in any year since the Medill Local News Initiative at Northwestern University began measuring that activity in 2018, and possibly the most ever.
Broadcasters Revamp Supply Chains For Increased Demands
Tech leaders from Tegna, ABC Owned Stations, Sinclair and Amagi told a TVNewsCheck webinar last week they’re assessing their media supply chains with a more critical eye as they seek greater efficiency and flexibility.
BIA
Local TV Strategies Video: Reinventing Local TV For Relevance & Revenue Growth (TVB subscription required)
BIA’s Rick Ducey explores how as the multiplatform video market continues to morph and evolve, local TV must keep pace with competitors by tapping innovations in technology, data, business models, audience and advertiser trends.
Mergers & Acquisitions
Deal Digest: GAB’s New President Sells His Georgia Radio Stations.
David Basha’s Carriage Radio has filed a $1.5 million deal to buy gospel WLJA (101.1) and AC WPGY (1580) in Ellijay, GA from Randy Gravley’s Tri-State Communications.
Paramount-Skydance Deal Shareholder Damages Could Exceed $1.65 Billion
Paramount investor Scott Baker, who previously filed a proposed class action lawsuit in the Delaware Court of Chancery alleging the company’s pending $8 billion merger with Skydance could cost shareholders $1.65 billion in damages, is vying to be the lead plaintiff on the case.
Television
Local TV’s Year Of Living Dangerously
As local broadcast TV stations revel in the final weeks of the lucrative 2024 election cycle, an unspoken reality looms just beyond the horizon: 2025 will bring a reckoning.
TV antennas send sports broadcasts back to the future
A growing number of American sports teams have embraced retro technology — the antenna — to broadcast games to cord-cutting local fans.
Radio
Radio Watches Closely as FTC Appeals Non-Compete Ban's Halt
The Federal Trade Commission announced it will appeal a Texas federal court’s decision blocking its non-compete ban from being implemented nationwide.
Media
Most U.S. counties have little to no local news sources
An uptick in newspaper closures this year has left more than half of the nation's 3,143 counties — or 55 million people — with just one or no local news sources where they live.
Michigan Newspapers Sue Over FTC Click-To-Cancel Rules
The Federal Trade Commission lacked valid grounds for the new “click to cancel” regulations that aim to make it easier for people to terminate subscriptions to newspapers, gyms, retailers and other businesses, the Michigan Press Association and National Federation of Independent Business say in a lawsuit challenging the rules.