RTDNA Walking To New Orleans In 2011

Freedom Communications won court approval for a reorganization that will allow it to slash $445 million from its secured debt. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware in Wilmington confirmed Freedom's reorg plan to reduce its debt and be taken over by lenders represented by J.P. Morgan Chase Bank.

A rally in financial stocks helped the market extend its grind higher to a third day Thursday.

The FCC chairman says television's retransmission consent framework has been under "active consideration" since New Year's Day.

Are the stars out tonight? They were on Wednesday night and Thursday morning, at a pair of cable upfront presentations that seemed to indicate an improvement in the long-gloomy mood on Madison Avenue. The presentations were for Bravo and Nickelodeon, and each was as lavish, and celebrity-filled, as those that were common before the recession wreaked havoc on consumer confidence and, by extension, advertiser confidence.

The former host of The Tonight Show announced a 30-city theater tour on Thursday. Sidekick Andy Richter and the former Tonight Show band will join O'Brien for what he promises to be "a night of music, comedy, hugging and the occasional awkward silence."

With a dedicated 45 Mbps DS3 line, Sundance automation and an Omneon ProCast CDN transport engine, Cowles Media California has built a mini-hub at its Salinas triopoly that downlinks syndicated programming for the Salinas stations as well as its duopoly in Santa Maria, 150 miles away.

NBC continues to be competitive in the 10 p.m. timeslot, though that says as much about the competition as anything NBC is programming. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit tied for first place with CBS's CSI: NY at 10 last night with a 2.6 adults 18-49 rating.

Adrienne Roark is moving from Miami to become VP-news director of KTVT-KTXA Dallas. She's being replaced by Cesar Aldama, who's comng in from KYW-WPSG Philadelphia.

The award presentation Honoring New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg raised more than $200,000 for the Broadcasters Foundation of America to help broadcasters in need.

Searches for major U.S. broadcast news brands fell across the board in February, according to data from Experian Hitwise. Each of the top 10 brands in the Broadcast Media category experienced loss of share compared with the previous month, and even generic searches for "news" dipped from 0.75% of searches in the category to 0.57% over the course of the month.

While political is down, core ad revenue grows by 4%; retrans money rises by $900,000 to $2.4 million and auto ads are up 14%.

Excluding political ad revenue, revenue was up 12.6% to $94 million with retrans and digital revenue growing 44%.

The NAB TV board chairman tells lawmakers that cable and satellite operators are wrong in asserting that the FCC needs to step into negotiations over retransmission consent payments. The current process works well, he says.

The provider of online technology and services says it has signed up four new broadcasters: Dispatch, Jackson Broadcasting, Landmark and Ramar.

Digital executives at TV networks say they are diving into different platforms -- from Web video to social media to mobile -- to connect with audiences wherever they are. They have embraced the "Splinternet," the term recently coined by Forrester analyst Josh Bernoff to describe the fragmentation of media across a multitude of gadgets.

With fans already creating their own Lost entertainment online, ABC has decided to jump into the act. The network is setting up a contest for fans to create their own TV promo for the show.

Google Inc. is signing up marketers to use its latest display-advertising technology, pressuring rival Yahoo Inc. and advancing the search giant's effort to change the way ads are sold across the Internet, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal.

Many of the country's biggest television providers have signed on to a petition asking the government to revamp station retransmission rules. But the nation's biggest cable company, Comcast, was missing. Comcast finds itself in a peculiar position because it is buying a majority stake in NBC Universal, which owns the NBC broadcast network.

Seven months after an initial blitz of advertising surrounding the health-care reform bill, various parties, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are spending $10 million on an ad campaign in response to President Barack Obama's push to have the Senate version of the bill passed by the House of Representatives before Easter on April 4.

The network's handling of a Feb. 22 World News story about potential problems with computer systems in Toyotas has created ethical questions and intensified bitter feelings the besieged automaker already had toward ABC.

The Senate Wednesday passed STELA, the five-year re-authorization of the satellite blanket distant signal license. It still has to be passed in the House, but the Senate action is a major step given the trouble the bill has had in gaining passage.

Dana Walden and Gary Newman are tapped for April 12's Keynote Conversation with Joe Flint of the Los Angeles Times.