Business

Being the in-house agency for broadcast giant Sinclair Broadcast Group wasn‘t ambitious enough for Compulse. As media companies and advertisers look to dive deeper into advanced advertising, Compulse has been working to become a marketing technology company that services the industry, not just Sinclair.

Executives say looking at multiple data sets, including panel information, helps paint a clearer viewership picture.

John J. Rigas, whose high-flying success as the founder of Adelphia Cable ended in disgrace and prison over shareholder fraud, died Sept. 30 in Coudersport, Pa. He was 96.

NBCUniversal’s cable and broadcast networks are still live on YouTube TV, after the media company and Google reached a short-term extension to their previous distribution agreement just prior to the Sept. 30 midnight ET expiration.

Dish Network says that AT&T SportsNet and Root Sports Regional Sports Networks were removed from Dish TV Thursday in Denver, Pittsburgh and Seattle.

TVNewsCheck‘s Michael Depp and Glen Dickson discuss the knock-on effects of the NAB Show’s October cancellation on vendors and the implications for future trade shows, including December’s planned IBC.

The S&P 500 ended the month 4.8% lower on Thursday, its first monthly drop since January and the biggest since March 2020, when the viral outbreak rattled markets as it wreaked havoc with the global economy.

Ozy Media Chairman Marc Lasry quit the embattled company Thursday, under fire for a series of questionable business practices. COO Samir Rao had previously taken a leave of absence from the company after it was revealed he had impersonated a Google executive on a fundraising call with Goldman Sachs.

Zucker, who was expected to leave CNN in December, will now stay on through the inception of CNN+, and into 2022. Amid rumors of a high-profile promotion at the forthcoming Warner Bros. Discovery, he has told at least one friend that he would be happier staying in his current position, building out the new company’s global news and sports businesses.

Despite the auto category’s current troubled state due to manufacturers’ lack of computer chips, there’s nowhere for spot to go but way, way up in 2022. And then there’s a monumental cash dump expected from politicos during the midterm elections. That’s the consensus of station groups and industry watchers surveyed annually by TVNewsCheck.

An auction of the Tegna TV station empire has been thrown into doubt as the company has questioned whether a prospective sale to a leading bidder would face antitrust concerns from U.S. regulators.

The S&P 500 clung to a modest gain as other indexes ended mixed on Wednesday. That gain came a day after the benchmark index posted its worst drop since May. The index is on pace for its first first monthly loss since January.

Allison McGinley, news director of WKMG-TV Orlando, Fla., was installed as chair of the Radio Television Digital News Association at RTDNA21 in Denver. McGinley will serve in that role for one year. (BP Miller/Chorus Photography)

With the curtain set to go up on the NBA and NHL season, MSG Network is alerting viewers that it is nearing a potential blackout on Comcast Xfinity cable systems in New Jersey and Connecticut. Comcast, though it is the No. 1 U.S. cable operator, has virtually no customers in New York City, but a healthy six-figure number of them in the suburbs are at risk of losing service.

Executives from Dentsu, Publicis Media, UM Worldwide and E.W. Scripps entertained the prospect of buyers and sellers being their own source of TV audience data in a panel at TVNewsCheck’s TV2025 last week, prompted by the industry’s threadbare patience with Nielsen.

The purchase of KIKU Honolulu by Allen Media Broadcasting top the latest list of TV station transactions submitted to the FCC for its approval, according to BIA Advisory Services.

A spike in bond yields spooked investors Tuesday, deflating tech stocks. The S&P 500 fell 2%, its worst drop since May. The tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 2.8%, its biggest drop since March. Decliners outnumbered advancers on the New York Stock Exchange 4 to 1.

In a quest for more revenue, the app known for short videos is trying to make it easier to match its stars with brands.

Calling out Facebook and Google, among others, nonprofit watchdog group Accountable Tech has called on the Federal Trade Commission to ban targeted advertising based on user data, or what it calls “surveillance” advertising. That came in a petition for rulemaking filed today (Sept. 28) that asked the FTC to stop the practice of “unseemly collection and hoarding of personal data to enable ad targeting,” which it calls an example of the unfair competition the agency is charged with preventing.

The network aims for “symmetry” by having agencies use the same tool for currency as for planning.

Local broadcasters and cable operators needn’t be constantly at odds with each other, leaders from Fox Television Stations, Hearst Television and Gray Television said in a panel last week that also tackled streaming, M&A and diversity.

Madison Avenue’s consensus outlook for the U.S. ad economy improved dramatically this morning, as IPG Mediabrands’ Magna unit increased its forecast for 2021 ad growth to 23.2%, up from 15.1% in June, 6.4% in March and just 4.1% when it made its original prediction for the year in December 2020. Magna also upgraded its outlook for 2020, and now expects it to rise 11.6%, up from the 8.0% it was projecting in its June update.

He has spent the past 18 years with Hearst Television, most recently as president and general manager of WDSU, the NBC affiliate in New Orleans, since February 2007.

New jobs posted to TVNewsCheck’s Media Job Center include openings for a multimedia sales account executive, a digital content director and news directors for Hearst and Nexstar stations in Florida and California.

Another carriage fight has burst into public view: NBCUniversal on Sunday said it was notifying customers with YouTube TV that more than 14 of its networks, including local NBC channels, could go dark on the streaming service in a matter of days. NBCU’s deal with YouTube TV is set to expire Thursday, Sept. 30. Google is unwilling to pay the higher rates the media conglomerate is asking in the renewal talks, according to NBCU. Google said that if it can’t reach a deal by Sept. 30, it will reduce YouTube TV’s monthly subscription fee by $10 per month while the NBCU nets are dark.