Radio+Television Business Report

The future ownership of a Class A FM radio station serving a group of small communities due west of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, will be left up to the executrix of the estate of its owner, who passed away in mid-May at the age of 82.

The parent organization of the NPR Member stations serving Sacramento and much of Northern California, mired in a state of fiscal fragility, has confirmed that it is planning to end its operating agreements with stations serving Chico, Calif., and across Humboldt County — putting these operations in an unknown state come 2026.

The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday recommended level funding of $40 million for fiscal year 2026 for the Next Generation Warning System (NGWS), which provides critical investment in public broadcasting’s public safety infrastructure.

Four new public radio stations are now participating in the "One Small Step" initiative from StoryCorps, thanks to a fresh grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. 

Ministerio R.M., Inc., licensee of WJVE-LP in Deltona, Fla., is seeking to avoid financial penalties with a late-filed FCC transfer of control application, admitting that years of board changes were never properly reported due to a lack of understanding of agency rules.

After revamping its smartphone app experience in December, iHeartMedia is now putting live radio directly into a new kind of mobile platform: sunglasses. The company has rolled out an integration with Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, becoming the first to give users hands-free access to radio and podcasts by simply speaking to their eyewear.

The great streaming shakeout is well underway. As subscription prices continue to climb, millions of viewers are opting out - but they aren’t tuning out. Instead, a growing wave of consumers is flipping back to ad-supported streaming, embracing free services that trade commercials for cost savings, according to VAB.

May served as a watershed month for US viewing habits, as streaming surpassed the combined share of broadcast and cable for the first time in Nielsen measurement. Still, among television viewing share last month, Warner Bros. Discovery and FOX were the big winners in terms of growth.

A proposed federal freeze on state artificial intelligence regulations has survived the "Byrd Bath" as the Senate reconciliation bill advances. The United States Senate Parliamentarian ruled that the provision, now described as a “temporary pause” rather than a full moratorium, can remain in the legislation.

“Losing public media would erode that trust and leave many American communities in the dark,” is the opinion of the Attorneys General of 22 states and the District of Columbia, who have filed an amicus brief supporting NPR and PBS in their lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to strip federal funding from public broadcasters.

CBS Texas (KTVT-TV) in Dallas-Ft. Worth has become the latest station to roll out Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality technology, marking the eighth CBS Stations market to adopt the platform behind New York, LA, Chicago, Philadelphia, the Bay Area, Denver, and Miami.

Otto Padrón, who led Los Angeles-based Meruelo Media for nearly a decade before stepping down earlier this year, has named his next move - Co-President, Co-Owner, and Chief Operating Officer of a national broadcast group operating five television networks.

Today marks the Broadcasters Foundation of America's Giving Day - a rallying call for the broadcast community to aid radio and TV professionals, past and present, facing severe financial hardship due to illness, natural disasters, or unforeseen personal crises.

Olivia Trusty has formally begun her tenure at the Federal Communications Commission, taking the oath of office on Monday to become the agency’s newest Commissioner. The swearing-in was shared on social media by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr.

Wisconsin Public Radio has notified at least 15 staff members that they will be laid off as part of a broad restructuring driven by budget shortfalls and the looming threat of federal funding cuts. The station will also end three nationally syndicated programs.

AdLib, a provider of the leading DSP-agnostic media buying platform for in-house programmatic teams and independent agencies, and programmatic audio buying platform Audiohook, have agreed to a strategic integration of their services. This, the companies say, is designed to widen access to performance-driven audio campaigns.

Technology companies active in the broadcast media space are already gearing up for IBC2025 in Amsterdam in September, and among the companies debuting new and/or updated products at the global affair in the Netherlands is Avid. For this company, "a pivotal update" to a popular music and audio postproduction product is here.

Urban One may be the next broadcast group to conduct a reverse stock split as pressure mounts to keep one of its publicly traded share classes in compliance with Nasdaq rules. Following a shareholder vote, the company’s board now holds the authority to consolidate shares as regulatory deadlines approach.

The National Association of Broadcasters is expanding its Depend on AM campaign, adding some of the most recognizable names in Christian and Conservative Talk radio as it intensifies its push to preserve AM radio’s place in U.S. car dashboards with a call for support from National Religious Broadcasters.

News Corp has extended Chief Executive Robert Thomson’s contract through June 2030, signaling continued confidence in his leadership as the company leans further into digital expansion, subscription growth, and intellectual property licensing.