At AT&T spokesman said a new retransmission consent agreement was reached Sunday, and stations are returning to DirecTV and AT&T in time for the NFL Playoffs and Golden Globes, among other programming.
From the future of newspapers to fake news, a man who has led and guided media for decades weighed in Thursday morning at the National Press Club. With a lifetime dedicated to journalism and the business of journalism and the media, former Hearst Corp. CEO Frank Bennack makes the case for the high road, from the front office to the front page.
NEW YORK (AP) — Former Hearst CEO Frank Bennack is working on a memoir. Simon & Schuster announced Tuesday that Bennack’s “Leave Something on the Table: And Other Surprising Lessons […]
Tegna, Hearst and EW Scripps are all planning on submitting final offers for Cox Media Group’s 14 TV stations at the end of January, according to people familiar with the matter. Final bids are due by Jan. 30, said the people, who asked not to be named because the process is private. A deal could fetch more than $2 billion, and possibly close to $3 billion, the people said.
A judicial panel has consolidated at least 18 antitrust suits against five TV station groups for allegedly colluding on spot pricing in the federal district court in Chicago. The defendants, which include Tribune, Sinclair and in some cases Gray, Hearst, Nexstar and Tegna, had pushed for the consolidation. The proliferatng suits are an outgrowth of a Justice Department review of the merger of Sinclair and Tribune, which was scuttled after the FCC found evidence of misrepresentation by Sinclair. (Free registration required.)
Dispatches from the Middle highlights surprising and under-reported stories from Hearst stations across the United States. It will appear in the newly launched dedicated section within Facebook Watch for news along with shows from other news organizations.
Exclusives
Uber-producer Shonda Rimes of “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal” fame has joined with Hearst on a new lifestyle website, Shondaland.com, to expand her brand in the digital space. The site’s content will also have syndication opportunities in Hearst titles like Cosmopolitan and ELLE and will create custom programs for advertisers.
Facebook Talks: Progress, But More Needed
Facebook is making a number of moves to help local news publishers do their work better and generate revenue to pay for it. Robertson Barrett, president of Hearst Newspapers Digital Media, details what he sees as the current promise of Facebook’s nascent effort to promote subscriptions for local news publishers and assesses the state of other major, yet-to-be-resolved issues for the publishers as they weigh their future on and with the giant social platform:
Hearst is out in front of a recent $133 million funding round for SVOD service iflix that is fending off the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime Video in emerging markets. Along with Hearst, Singapore-based EDBI and clients of DBS private bank are new investors in iflix, and are joined by existing investors Evolution Media, Sky PLC, Catcha Group, Liberty Global, Jungle Ventures and PLDT Inc.
Hearst has snapped up the 205-year-old New Haven (Conn.) Register, two smaller in-state dailies, eight weeklies and Connecticut magazine from Digital First Media, the companies said Monday.
Hearst CEO Steven Swartz says legacy media companies would be smart to invest in adjacent businesses “that have a little more wind at their back” than traditional media. In his conversation with ABC News’ Rebecca Jarvis, he pointed to Hearst’s own growing business information ventures, along with investments in new media players like AwesomenessTV and Vice, as examples driving profitability.
Hearst is rolling out a new audio content offering for Amazon’s voice-enabled assistant Alexa featuring inspirational quotes from Oprah Winfrey.
A look at the investments and acquisitions by 15 different media companies and social networks broken down by infographics, including Discovery Communications, Disney, Hearst and Tronc.
Hearst To Court: Dismiss Wendy Bell Suit
Former WTAE Pittsburgh anchor Wendy Bell’s federal court claim that she wouldn’t have been fired for posting opinions about the background and race of the Wilkinsburg massacre suspects if she were black should be thrown out because it’s speculation, the TV station’s parent company says.
This week, the station group and Verizon Digital Media Services announced completion of a technology deployment that’s making it simple to put local news and commercial content from the group’s 26 news-producing stations in the hands of viewers on their digital devices.
Stations from groups including Fox O&Os, Sinclair, Hearst, Cox and others will air the new show from NBCUniversal Domestic Television Distribution this fall. The show will be co-hosted by WNBC New York contributor Ben Aaron and Bad Girls Club reality star Tanisha Thomas.
In another defeat for TV broadcasters, an appellate court in Boston has rejected Hearst’s request to expedite its attempt to shut down Aereo.
Hearst Television’s VP of engineering says starting at a young age he’s loved taking gadgets apart to see how they work. That curiosity has propelled him into a broadcast engineering career that is now in its 34th year.
Hearst Gears Up For Elections With New App
Hearst takes its award-winning political coverage mobile with a new app that allows users to dig into information about national campaigns and local races. The app also invites engagement with Facebook sharing and user-generated photos and video.
Hearst Newspapers, looking for a head start in the app world, has launched subscription-based iPad apps for its four major dailies — the San Francisco Chronicle, the Houston Chronicle, the San Antonio Express-News and the Albany (N.Y.) Times-Union — built on company-created architecture that takes advantage of the Apple tablet’s capacity for visuals and room for expanded content.
DC Bureaus Give Stations A Local Edge
As TV stations struggle to distinguish themselves with hyperlocal strategies, one old solution is looking new again. A number of station groups — including Hearst, Belo, Cox, Gannett and Scripps — are finding that the specialized, localized reporting they get from their Washington bureaus has become a differentiator for them. As the head of Cox’s bureau says: “Our sole mission is to give stations hyper-local, unique coverage they can’t find anywhere else.”
Demand For Solid Syndie Fare Still Strong
Station group executives say that with growing multiplatform opportunities for stations, the need for compelling, creative syndicated programming is growing in importance. Said Post-Newsweek Stations’ Alan Frank: “No one does it like television. No one sells emotion like we do.”
Hearst Warns Of DirecTV Blackout
Hearst Television Inc., parent company 29 TV stations around the country, is warning viewers that the station’s signal could go dark for DirecTV subscribers on Jan. 1. Hearst delivered an e-mail to local media outlets Saturday laying out the latest in a series of publicly contested transmission-rights battles.
Big Media Go Local To Liven Web Efforts
NBC, Hearst Newspapers and Advance Newspapers have each blended traditional media with new to spice up their websites and enrich their local content.
