Business

With the release of Compulse 360 software for digital media, Compulse, Sinclair’s digital arm, offers purpose-built tech, expert managed services and transparent pricing designed to let clients run local campaigns at scale.

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts met with ViacomCBS Chairman Shari Redstone in recent weeks to discuss a potential streaming partnership for international markets, according to people familiar with the matter, a sign the media companies see opportunities to join forces. During the meeting, which was held around the end of June in New York, and which also included ViacomCBS CEO Robert Bakish, the executives discussed a variety of possible business partnerships that would allow the companies to enter non-U.S. markets together, the people said.

AT&T is selling $6.2 billion worth of DirecTV Holdings debt in order to finance the spinoff of its linear pay TV assets. The telecom is selling $3.1 billion of six-year secured bonds (aka junk bonds) that are set to price Thursday and may yield around 6% to 6.5%.

He will be succeeded by Mark Greatrex, the current EVP and chief sales and marketing officer, who will become president.

TVNewsCheck will present its annual conference charting the industry’s revenue path ahead in a virtual format once again this year with sessions on data and spot TV; NextGen TV’s monetization buildout; capitalizing on the cloud; and the event’s annual discussion with four station group leaders who offer their outlook on broadcast’s most impactful trends. Register here.

Stocks skidded Monday as COVID-19 fears shook markets. The S&P 500 fell 68.67, or 1.6%, to 4,258.49, after setting a record just a week earlier. In another sign of worry, the yield on the 10-year Treasury touched its lowest level in five months as investors scrambled for safer places to put their money.

More than a dozen states — including the home of Hollywood — are bolstering or considering expanding tax credits and incentive programs for movie and television production, hoping shoots can re-energize their economies. Meanwhile mega productions from WarnerMedia, Apple and Netflix have been filming in states that recently expanded their incentive programs, such as Oklahoma, Montana, Oregon and Kentucky.

The new team will manage the combined global operations upon the closing of Televisa-Univision merger.

The FCC has approved AT&T’s spin-off of its traditional video distribution business as it moves toward streaming (HBO Max) as its video play of choice, citing the parties’ undisputed claim that the New DirecTV company that will result would be stronger because it could focus on traditional video. The FCC will not require the New DirecTV to deliver local TV station signals to the 12 smallest markets, as the broadcast affiliate associations had asked. It also declined to apply any program carriage conditions on the deal.

The extraordinary decision by the country’s top automaker underlines how polarizing the Games have become in Japan as COVID-19 infections rise ahead of Friday’s opening ceremony. “There are many issues with these Games that are proving difficult to be understood,” Toyota Chief Communications Officer Jun Nagata told reporters Monday.

After working as a magazine executive, he helped launch Psychology Today and played a role in Rupert Murdoch’s $3 billion purchase of the company that owned TV Guide. He was 93.

Stocks closed out the week lower, breaking a three-week win streak. The benchmark S&P 500 index fell 0.8%, with a good part of its pullback attributable to declines in big technology stocks, banks and companies that rely on consumer spending. Energy and industrial stocks also helped drag the market down, outweighing gains in health care and utilities companies.

A year after Nielsen left the field of digital out-of-home media measurement, one of the field’s highest profile suppliers, GSTV (Gas Station TV), has signed with Comscore to utilize its fledgling place-based media audience measurement service. As part of the agreement, Comscore said it will report digital ad impressions, reach and frequency for each market and demographic GSTV sells as part of its national video advertising network.

Jonathan Katz, who launched Bounce TV, rebooted Court TV and sold his digital over-the-air startup to E.W. Scripps for $302 million in 2017, has resigned from Scripps to start a new company.

Anthony Katsur has been named chief executive of the IAB Tech Lab, a global nonprofit that promotes common standards and technology for digital advertising, at a moment of flux for the digital advertising industry. The appointment comes weeks after Alphabet Inc.’s Google said it would delay its planned removal of third-party cookies in its Chrome browser, a victory for the IAB Tech Lab, which was part of a chorus of industry voices calling for Google to give the industry more time to prepare for the change.

Sources say three senior staffers were let go after the streamer discovered they were secretly griping about management, including Chief Marketing Officer Bozoma Saint John.

The boards of directors of ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC affiliates associations will meet in-person for the first time in two years at the Las Vegas confab in October.

The almost completed traditional TV upfront witnessed strong average 19% gain in primetime broadcast CPM and 10% higher for cable TV nets for the upcoming 2021-22 TV season, according to Media Dynamics. But total upfront dollar volume this year — $19.04 billion for broadcast and cable TV networks — is still under the levels of 2019, down a collective 13%, according to the media consulting company.

ViacomCBS and Charter said they have a new multi-year distribution agreement that includes carriage of ViacomCBS’s broadcast stations and cable networks, as well as a license to sell the ViacomCBS streaming services to Charter’s Spectrum customers. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. One of the reasons for merging Viacom with CBS was to give the company greater clout with distributor like Charter.

Stocks closed lower Thursday, falling below recent record highs. The S&P 500 fell 0.3% after shedding an early gain. The benchmark index is now on pace for its first weekly loss in four weeks.

Sean Plater, who already leads the HBCU’s FM station and has led the school’s NextGen TV broadcast collaborative over the past year, will now oversee its public broadcasting TV outlet.

The stations’ former station manager returns to oversee Meredith’s Fox-MNT duopoly in Portland, Ore.

She will have day-to-day responsibility for working directly with the local GMs and their teams at the ViacomCBS-owned CBS Television Network stations in major markets across the country, primarily in the eastern half of the country. CBS plans to name additional Stations presidents at a later date.

Integration of two linear TV platforms seeks to offer fully automated solutions ranging from supply-side to demand-side with the “potential to revolutionize the way stations manage and sell their commercial spots, boosting revenue and increasing labor efficiencies.”

Fox TV Stations said today it’s made a deal to integrate Fox Flx, its over-the-top advertising product, into the Strata buying platform operated by Comcast’s FreeWheel unit.