Headlines
Local TV Earnings Calls Reveal An Industry At A Strategic Crossroads
Is local television becoming a sports distribution business? A spectrum infrastructure platform? A mature retransmission utility? Or simply a declining but still highly cash-generative media asset being managed for duration rather than growth?
Mergers & Acquisitions
Deal Digest: Urban One Sells Second Charlotte FM
Augusta Radio Fellowship Institute’s Good News Network has filed a $725,000 deal to buy “Mix 99.3” WMXG (99.3) from Urban One.
Nexstar asks appeals court to ease burden of legal injunction over TEGNA deal
Nexstar argues the order is overly broad and should apply only to markets with overlapping Big Four network stations.
DirecTV Asks FCC to Block Scripps’ INYO Acquisition
Six broadband associations joined DirecTV in arguing that the regulatory had no authority to waive station ownership caps
Media
More than 340 local news outlets are limiting the Internet Archive’s access to their journalism
In January, Nieman Lab broke the story that major news publishers — including The New York Times, The Guardian, and USA Today Co. — had started blocking the Internet Archive due to concerns that AI companies might scrape the nonprofit’s repositories for training data.
Tech
Broadcast cyber threats evolve as infrastructure moves from SDI to IP
Broadcasters now face the same range of cyber threats as any other business operating on IP networks, with additional exposure tied to the studio-to-transmitter links, RDS encoders and EAS equipment that make broadcasting work, Wayne Pecena said during a presentation at the FCC’s cybersecurity workshop for broadcasters.
FCC
FCC Vote Streamlines Disaster Reporting for Broadcasters
The FCC unanimously approved four items at its May open meeting, including modernization of the Disaster Information Reporting System, consolidating a decade-old filing structure long flagged as a bottleneck for radio during active disaster recovery.
Carr, Gomez Offer Dueling Visions At FCC’s May Open Meeting
The FCC’s May Open Meeting produced a unanimous vote on four items, including streamlining the Disaster Information Reporting System, but after the meeting adjourned, Chairman Brendan Carr and Commissioner Anna Gomez were far from one accord.