Business

ViacomCBS and Comcast’s potential partnership has been slowed by concern about the Biden Administration’s pledge to aggressively enforce the nation’s antitrust laws, according to a source with knowledge of the discussions. Both sides are waiting to see how the new administration’s regulators react to the proposed merger of AT&T’s WarnerMedia unit with Discovery, says the source, before resuming discussions about ways the two sides could work together — including any possible business combination — beyond a possible streaming partnership outside the U.S.

The purchase of KPHE-LD Phoenix by Sovryn Holdings tops the latest list of TV station transactions submitted to the FCC for its approval, according to BIA Advisory Services.

YouTube contributed $7 billion in revenue — up big from last year.

Weakness in tech stocks pulled Wall Street back from records on Tuesday. The S&P 500 fell 0.5%, snapping a five-day winning streak. Traders shifted money into sectors seen as less risky, including utilities, health care and in companies that make household and personal goods.

The digital media companies that once seemed to have a lock on the future are making plans to get bigger and pay back their investors.

The company says its Digital Ad Ratings measures nearly 90% of total digital video spend in the U.S.; more than 60% resiliency against the loss of third-party identifiers.

NBC’s Tokyo Olympics are shaping up to be an echo of the 1998 Nagano disaster at CBS, but aberrations aside, the Games will remain sports’ gold standard.

Stocks rebounded from an uneven start on Monday to finish slightly higher. The S&P 500 shrugged off an early slide and gained 0.2%. Consumer-oriented companies, banks and energy and communications stocks helped lift the market.

The Apple TV+ show’s producers are demanding Chubb National Insurance pay for second season delays due to the pandemic.

Digital Media Rights (DMR) has formed a new social media division that will curate content for social platforms in order to push distribution and create revenue and marketing opportunities. DMR Social starts out with a footprint of more than 17 million subscribers and followers on YouTube and Facebook across eight brands. Collectively they average more than 284 million video views and 8 million hours watched per month.

Fox-owned WTTG (Fox) and WDCA (MNT) are now broadcasting from 7272 Wisconsin Ave. in suburban Bethesda, Md., which is about two miles from their previous location at 5151 Wisconsin Ave. in the District of Columbia where the stations had been located since 1966.

The finance executive with more than 20 years of experience in media, broadcasting and entertainment investment banking joins the company on Aug. 9.

New jobs posted to TVNewsCheck’s Media Job Center include openings for an assistant news director, a morning news executive producer, content producers and a general manager.

Media agency Zenith is forecasting a decline in U.S. TV ad spending in 2021 as audiences shrink and marketers pour their advertising dollars into digital video. “Audiences continue to migrate online, and online video viewing is growing rapidly, even as traditional television ratings shrink again after a one-off spike when lockdowns began in 2020,” Zenith said in its report. “Advertisers value online video as a means of maintaining reach while television declines, but it’s an effective form of brand communication in its own right.”

Jan Goldstein, SVP of human resources at Gray Television, says the 9-to-5 status quo has been permanently disrupted at TV stations by the pandemic. The new world of TV HR has also been reshaped by a deeper commitment to diversity and inclusion, a greater scrutiny of future work-related travel and the blurred lines between employees’ professional and personal lives after 15 months of remote work. 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.

Station group leaders Jordan Wertlieb from Hearst Television; Jack Abernethy from Fox Television Stations; and Pat LaPlatney from Gray Television will unpack the state of TV amid enormous change at TV2025: Monetizing the Future, a virtual conference. Register here.

The president has stacked his administration with crusaders who have spent their careers challenging corporate consolidation.

Wall Street rallied on Friday to close out a record-breaking end to a turbulent week. The S&P 500 index climbed 44.31, or 1%, to 4,411.79 to top its prior all-time high, set early last week.

Last week, it was announced that the FCC would be considering some changes to its political broadcasting rules at its monthly open meeting in August.  In some quarters, that raised concern that significant changes were coming in time for the 2022 congressional elections. But, when the draft of the proposed changes was released, it turned out that the changes were instead very minor.

CBS has ousted the leaders of its O&O stations in Los Angeles and Chicago after concluding a six-month investigation into misconduct claims at the CBS Television Stations group. Jay Howell is out as general manager of KCBS-TV and KCAL-TV Los Angeles, as is Derek Dalton at WBBM-TV Chicago. The terminations were disclosed in memos Thursday about the conclusion of the investigation sparked by a Los Angeles Times expose on hostile working conditions for women and people of color at a number of CBS O&Os.

TVNewsCheck‘s Michael Depp and Harry Jessell discuss the uncertainty lingering at the FCC, where Acting Chair Jessica Rosenworcel may be facing contention for the permanent job and a fifth commissioner has yet to be appointed.

Slow-paying advertising agencies continue to be an issue for collection teams —  an issue that seemed to worsen with the pandemic. Fortunately, a three-part plan from an industry expert who’s been in the media collections business for 50 years offers a solid structure, sound advice, and actionable insights for the best bet in collecting what’s due.

Stock indexes inched higher on Wall Street on Thursday, preserving weekly gains. The S&P 500 shrugged off a midday slide and rose 0.2%. Microsoft and other big technology stocks helped nudge the index up.

The San Francisco-based company earned $65.6 million, or 8 cents per share, in the April-June quarter. That’s up from a loss of $1.38 billion, or $1.75 per share, a year earlier. Revenue jumped 74% to $1.19 billion from $683.4 million, surpassing Wall Street’s expectations. Ad revenue in the U.S. alone nearly doubled.

With a consolidation of CBS’s News and Stations divisions already underway, the network has now also finished its long external probe into various allegations of racist and abusive behavior at local outlets — and change is coming to the City of Angels and the Windy City ASAP and more, promise execs.

Former longtime CBS executive Joseph Ianniello has launched a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, with a handful of former colleagues to scout for acquisitions in media, entertainment and sports. The firm called Argus Capital Corp, filed with the SEC Thursday to raise up to $300 million, offering 30 million units at $10. Ianniello is chairman and CEO of the group.