Radio+Television Business Report

Do you have anything to share with the FCC regarding the proposed acquisition of TEGNA by Nexstar Media Group? Your opportunity to share your party's views on the blockbuster deal via an ex parte filing with the Commission has opened.

It's an institution of higher learning "developing servant-leaders marked with a passion to minister Christ’s redemptive love, grace, and truth to the world" since 1846. Soon, it will become the owner of two Hoosier State FM radio stations.

In March, a Class B1 FM airing Classic Country music under the "NASH Icon" brand went dark, concluding its service. The station's owner, Cumulus Media, thought the FM would be better silent than a money-loser. Now, the publicly traded company led by Mary Berner has found a buyer.

It already has a presence on Suffolk County thanks to WLIR-FM 107.1 in Hampton Bays, bringing programming heard on WABC-AM 770 to the easternmost portion of New York's Long Island. Now, John Catsimatidis and his Red Apple Media are reinforcing its coverage of the region with an AM and its FM translators.

The Chief Legal Officer and head of Legal and Regulatory Affairs at the NAB has made it clear that any suggestions that retransmission consent is a relevant consideration when contemplating changes in the FCC's national television ownership rule are "unsound" and "wholly unmeritorious."

The weekly look at the actual amount of commercial airings per brand at both spot cable and spot TV is here, courtesy of iHeartMedia-owned Media Monitors. And, at spot cable, there's a big push to increase consumption — and subscriptions — at Warner Bros. Discovery's key OTT streaming platform.

It had operated as a Class B AM radio station. As of Monday morning, it was reduced to an online-only offering featuring Christmas music. That's because this facility no longer has a broadcast signal. The FCC affirmed the cancellation of its license, for being dark for too long without permission and then seeking its renewal.

Rich Bressler will soon focus fully on his COO role at iHeartMedia. What's happened? The company has given Bressler's CFO duties to an individual who has been its Executive Vice President of Finance and Deputy CFO since joining iHeartMedia in 2019.

Stingray Group Inc.'s broadcast arm is expanding its radio station stable in the home of the Stampede. The deal will give Stingray three FMs in Calgary, joining a Top 40 station and Adult Hits leader modeled after its successful "Boom 97.3" in Toronto.

The man who has served as Senior VP of Media Operations at the broadcasting company that's parent to such stations as WUSA9 in Washington, D.C., and is poised to merge with Nexstar Media Group in 2026 — pending regulatory approval and a likely federal court challenge — has retired.

On Tuesday, RBR+TVBR shared the news that a Class A FM in the tiny city of Jersey Shore, Pa., west of Williamsport, was being acquired by Family Life Ministries. Now, the parent of Family Life Radio is moving forward with the purchase of a Class A FM that can be heard in the Harrisburg, Pa., area.

Add Saga Communications to the list of radio station owners that will participate in an upcoming institutional investor event planned for December 3 at Florida Atlantic University and presented by the financial advisory house that’s home to Director of Research Michael Kupinski.

Paperwork submitted to the FCC for its regulatory approval shows that a radio broadcasting company led by veteran operator Tom Taggart and President Sam Yoho has agreed to sell a pair of West Virginia FMs to a local buyer. 

A roughly two-month battle that saw every broadcast and cable TV channel tied to TelevisaUnivision — including non-owned over-the-air Univision and UniMás affiliates — get pulled from virtual MVPD YouTube TV due to a bitter retransmission consent impasse has ended.

What Cumulus Media calls “a critical inflection point…for the broadcast radio industry as a whole,” Nielsen calls “hyperbolic and baseless,” as the two prepare to square off in federal court over the measurement giant’s Network Policy and the economics of ratings access.

The E.W. Scripps Company's Board of Directors has responded to a $7 per share unsolicited merger offer from Sinclair Inc. by adopting a limited-duration shareholder rights plan, something it says will "ensure that all shareholders receive full value in connection with any proposal to acquire the company."

NRG Media, the radio station ownership group led by CEO Mary Quass, is moving forward with the sale of properties serving a trio of Nebraska cities. Who's the buyer in this deal brokered by Kalil & Co.? Look no further than the Ushers, and we know how much their paying for the former Waitt stations.

Some 45 years after a report produced while shadowing a full-time KTRK-13 news team member made it on the air, much to the News Director's anger, Melanie Lawson will be retiring from the ABC Owned Stations property in Houston. She shared her plans with viewers during Tuesday's 5pm newscast.

An AM radio station with a Construction Permit for 1kw during daylight hours and 80 watts at night from 1 tower, which is presently silent under Special Temporary Authority, is being sold by entrepreneur Jeff Chang. The buyer? It's an owner of radio stations in small markets across California.

The individual that's behind the low-power TV licensee King Forward Inc. has finalized an asset purchase agreement that sees his company acquiring a pair of LPTV facilities serving Northern Nevada's biggest city.