Cox Media Group

Cox Media Group’s NeighborhoodTV project in Atlanta and Charlotte, N.C., aims to bring viewers hyperlocal content that harkens back to TV’s earlier, less rigidly structured days.

Marketing leaders from Cox Media Group, Graham Media Group, Gray Television and Tegna will discuss projects that get to the heart of localism and how they’ve successfully built high audience engagement around them in a TVNewsCheck Working Lunch Webinar on July 13. Register here.

Executives from Nexstar, Cox Media Group, Gray Television and ABC Owned Stations shared how their content businesses are evolving into 24/7 news networks, diginets, FAST channels, hyperlocal offerings and more at TVNewsCheck’s Programming Everywhere conference at NAB in Las Vegas last week. Pictured (l-r): Brad Wall, LTN Global; Adrianne Anderson, ABC Owned Stations; Steve Pruett, Cox Media Group; Sean Compton, Nexstar Media; and Pat LaPlatney, Gray Television. (Alyssa Wesley photo)

He will play an expanded role in continuing to grow streaming while also creating business development opportunities.

Ensuring the flow of local and on-brand content is only one of the challenges FAST channels present — innovation to aid in discoverability remains critical, experts advise.

Top executives from Cox Media Group, Nexstar, Gray Television and ABC Owned Stations frame up how they’re building content everywhere lineups, then branding and promoting them locally and beyond in a panel at TVNewsCheck’s Programming Everywhere conference at the NAB Show in Las Vegas on April 16. Register here.

“The next step for retrans is down, not up,” the Dish chairman says while drawing his typically hard line amid a protracted impasse with Cox Media Group.

Executives from Sinclair, NBCUniversal Local, Cox Media Group, Nexstar’s The Hill, Samsung and Frequency will explore the programming opportunities presented by the rise of FAST channels in the streaming ecosystem at TVNewsCheck’s Programming Everywhere event at the NAB Show in Las Vegas on April 16. Register here.

The Scripps Florida 24 Network, which covers local and state news in Miami, Tampa, West Palm Beach, Tallahassee and Fort Myers, will add coverage from Cox’s stations in Jacksonville and Orlando later in the first quarter.

The deal ensures CMG’s stations remain in Spectrum’s lineup with local news, entertainment and sports.

Dish has sent the FCC a term sheet it says backs up the claim, cited in a story in Broadcasting + Cable, that Cox Media Group wanted to include both Standard General and Tegna stations in retrans talks. Standard General is trying to get the FCC to sign off on its $8 billion-plus deal to acquire the Tegna stations. It has told the FCC it will not bundle Cox and Tegna stations in retrans talks and Cox has disputed the Dish claim, saying it never has and never will try to do so.

A Cox Media Group collaboration across all of its TV stations’ investigative reporting teams exposed a business practice criticized by homeowners in at least seven states, several of which, including Florida, Pennsylvania and Georgia, have filed law suits against the company.

Investigative reporters from Cox Media Group stations collaborated on stories about a real estate company now accused of deceiving customers across the country. The collaboration is part of a new approach by the station group, which added senior level reporters and producers earlier this year in an effort to do more stories that have national impact. Above: WFTV investigative reporter Todd Ulrich interviews a source for the MV Realty story.

American  American Television Alliance (ATVA) issued a statement criticizing retransmission consent negotiating tactics by Apollo Global Management-owned Cox Media Group. Citing examples of what it called blackouts and threats of blackouts this holiday season, the ATVA said that those disruptions highlight why Standard General’s proposed $8.6 billion acquisition of Tegna poses a “significant threat to consumers”.

The NewsGuild-CWA and National Alliance of Broadcast Engineers and Technicians-CWA unions are using a retransmission consent impasse between Dish and Apollo Global Management’s Cox Media Group to argue to the FCC against the merger of Standard General and Tegna.

Cox Media Group said it sent a cease-and-desist letter to Dish Network demanding the satellite-TV provider retract numerous “false claims” it says are designed to mislead customers about the dispute that resulted in a blackout of Cox’s stations to Dish subscribers this week.

Cox Media Group stations in nine markets have been blacked out to Dish TV subscribers because of a retransmission fee dispute, effective Monday. Dish said that one issue is Dish is allowing subscribers to opt out of local stations as part of their pay-TV service. Dish says Cox wants Dish to pay fees for those customers. The dispute affects Cox stations in Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Dayton, Eugene, Jacksonville, Orlando, Pittsburgh and Seattle. Cox Media Group is controlled by Apollo Global Management.

New jobs posted to TVNewsCheck’s Media Job Center include openings for a digital sales director, three VP-market managers and a marketing director.

The sale of CMG stations in 12 markets to INSP’s Imagicomm marks INSPs expansion into broadcasting.

CMG adds Telemundo affiliates in Jacksonville, Fla., and Seattle and also renews its contract with the Hispanic network in Charlotte, N.C.

TVNewsCheck’s Streaming News 2022 kicks off as a two-part webinar event on July 21 focusing on news programming for OTT and how its production can smoothly integrate into newsroom workflows. Executives from Cox Media Group, NBCUniversal Local, E.W. Scripps and Fox Television Stations will discuss how they’re tackling the platform. Register here.

Broadcaster Cox Media Group said it has “responded promptly” to outreach from Cincinnati Bell and rejects claims it has not been negotiating for retransmission consent in good faith or that it is demanding fees for the telco‘s broadband-only subscribers. Cincinnati Bell had filed a formal retransmission consent complaint with the FCC against CMG-owned WHIO — the CBS affiliate in Dayton, Ohio, and the top station in the market — for allegedly failing to negotiate in good faith, as FCC rules require, by trying to charge a fee per over-the-top video streamer as well as per traditional cable subs.

Among them are WHBQ Memphis, KAYU Spokane, and KOKI-KMYT Tulsa, Okla.

The proliferation of news on live linear streaming has set off an explosion of innovation in television news. TVNewsCheck will turn a spotlight on this trend during a webinar set for March 24 at 1 p.m. ET. Sharing their experience and insights during the event will be: (clockwise from upper left): Micah Grimes, VP news and sports, Atmosphere TV; Shareef Al-Ela, VP and head of LiveNow from Fox; Sarah Katt, general manager of AccuWeather Network and OTT streaming services; Brian Ring, senior director, product marketing for news, Amagi and the webinar’s moderator; and Matt Dominguez, senior manager, streaming distribution and partnerships at Cox Media Group. To join us at the webinar, please register here. 

Cox will have access to a broad range of Nielsen services, including Scarborough, Arianna, Local Media Impact, and more.

The 26-year Cox Media Group veteran will oversee TV, radio and digital operations in Dayton.

TV’s digital businesses are in a strong position to withstand Google’s eventual phase-out of third-party cookies in 2023, says Joe Weir, Cox Media Groups SVP of digital, but that means cultivating its own walled gardens in the process. Note: This story is available to TVNewsCheck Premium members only. If you would like to upgrade your free TVNewsCheck membership to Premium now, you can visit your Member Home Page, available when you log in at the very top right corner of the site or in the Stay Connected Box that appears in the right column of virtually every page on the site. If you don’t see Member Home, you will need to click Log In or Subscribe.

It’s the latest broadcast station group to throw its support behind adoption of “thousands” for buying and selling advertising on local TV.

Executives from E.W. Scripps, Cox Media Group, CBC and Disney told attendees of a TVNewsCheck virtual conference that advertisers are warming to the fact that neither a linear- nor digital-only approach can be as effective as a multiplatform buy. Above, Maggie Drake, Scripps senior director, OTT revenue, said she is starting to see advertisers gravitate toward digital and away from linear ads.

The broadcaster is silent as speculation it is victim of ransomware hack continues.

Orlando, Fla., ABC affiliate WFTV and Pittsburgh NBC affiliate WPXI were two of the stations most affected by Thursday’s attack.

In her new role, Oh will be responsible for driving innovation and continued engagement while overseeing Gamut’s day-to-day over-the-top advertising businesses and their functions.

A panel at TVNewsCheck’s June 9 virtual conference, Streaming News 2021, will detail the most effective ways of monetizing streaming news content with executives from Disney Advertising Sales, The E.W. Scripps Co., Cox Media Group and CBC. Register here.

A TVNewsCheck virtual conference on June 9 will explore strategies for building audiences and monetizing on streaming services featuring executives from CBS News Digital, Fox Owned Stations, Gray Television, E.W. Scripps, CBC, Cox Media Group, Disney/ABC and KSL Salt Lake City. Register here.