A mixed set of earnings reports held stock market gains to a minimum Wednesday. While it's still early this earnings season, traders are trying to gauge how much the U.S. trade war with China and a slowdown in global economic growth is hurting Corporate America.

The first game of the World Series delivered a ratings win for Fox Tuesday, but preliminary numbers show it falling short of last year's opener. Regular programming on other networks was mostly unaffected, with NBC's This Is Us and several other shows actually improving week to week.

Top media analysts have cut their short-term growth prospects for ViacomCBS following last week’s financial disclosures that came as part of the closing of CBS Corp.’s stock-swap takeover deal for Viacom.

The broadcast group’s president-CEO will be honored by the Broadcasters Foundation of America at its annual gala in New York on March 4.

The Senate took a wide look and a deep dive into the issues surrounding STELAR renewal Wednesday in a hearing in the Senate Commerce Committee. Cable operators, who want the law renewed, had to be pleased by the first bit of info that surfaced.

With the influx of new streaming services, even spendthrift conglomerates are opening their pocketbooks wider than ever. For example, When Apple TV plus launches on Nov. 1, it will do so with what’s arguably the most expensive new-series lineup in TV history. Among the streamer’s initial offerings are the drama The Morning Show, bearing a price tag believed to be more than $15 million an episode, and the dystopian sci-fi series See, which is rumored to have cost as much as $17 million an hour. 

One year after Hurricane Michael, the Panama City ABC affiliate is operating from a nearly $3 million renovated, state-of-the-art building. Immediately after the storm, WMBB staff broadcast from the parking lot, now they have new digital broadcast capabilities, including the newsroom above.

The details are still murky, but CNN has recently created a new internal group called NewsCo that is developing a suite of digital products, a company spokesperson confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter today.

Leaders from Nexstar, Gray and Meredith expressed hope that automation and impressions-based selling may help curb a downward trend in spot TV sales, but broadcasters must avoid being “held hostage” to tech companies in the process. L-r: Patrick McCreery of Meredith, Perry Sook of Nexstar and Pat LaPlatney of Gray. (Photo: Wendy Moger-Bross)

Shari Redstone says the combination of Viacom and CBS, the companies that make up her family’s media empire, will create a content giant that can compete with larger industry rivals.

TV station owners are taking advantage of FCC rules to quietly take over small-town airwaves, but cable and satellite companies are crying foul to regulators. Broadcasters aren't supposed to own more than one top-rated outlet in any market, but they are snapping up multiple stations anyway in small markets like Parkersburg, W.Va., and Greenville, Miss., as the broadcast TV market is challenged by changes in technology and advertising.

Because just what's needed now is yet another video streaming service, movie theater operator AMC Entertainment announced that it, too, is launching its own on-demand channel. Called AMC Theaters On Demand, the video service lets viewers watch around 2,000 movies for prices ranging between $2 and $20 depending upon whether they're rented or bought, and no subscription is required.

NBC averaged 7 million viewers for the week, with runner-up Fox grabbing 6.1 million. CBS had 5.7 million, ABC had 4.3 million, Telemundo had 1.4 million, Univision had 1.3 million, Ion Television had 1.2 million and the CW had 860,000.

CBS is doubling down on all its new shows. The network has renewed Evil for a second season, and handed out full-season orders to its other four freshman series: All Rise, Carol’s Second Act, The Unicorn and Bob Hearts Abishola.

What’s left of 47-year-old Money magazine has been sold to a 3-year-old digital startup run by a former Google executive. After shutting down its print edition earlier this year when parent Meredith failed to find a buyer, Money has sold its surviving brand, Money.com, to Ad Practitioners LLC, based in Dorado, Puerto Rico. Terms were not disclosed, but sources say the brand went for just over $20 million.

Quibi said Tuesday it has sold out of its $150 million first-year advertising inventory. Set for an April 2020 launch, the mobile-only streaming service has also added Discover, General Mills, Taco Bell and T-Mobile as new brand partners.

A grand jury in Boston indicted the parents on charges of trying to bribe officials at an organization that receives at least $10,000 in federal funding. In this case, they're accused of paying to get their children admitted to the University of Southern California.

New jobs posted to TVNewsCheck’s Media Job Center are for local sales managers for Sinclair and Paxton Media TV stations in Dayton, Ohio, and Paducah, Ky.

The opening is at the Fox-owned duopoly of WTTG-WDCA. This is a fast-paced, large market environment, and candidates should expect to do it all, from station image campaigns to topicals, from sales to digital.