Business

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.

One month after NBCUniversal finished its upfront negotiations but offered few specifics about its haul, the company is finally sharing some specifics about its biggest upfront ever — and revealed that it is well on its way to wrapping Super Bowl 56 ad sales in record time. NBCU has secured as much as $6 million per 30-second spot, according to sources close to negotiations, a 9% increase over what CBS charged advertisers to appear in February’s Super Bowl 55.

The sale of the ABC affiliate in Flint-Saginaw, Mich., will pave the way for closing Gray’s purchase of Meredith’s station group. It boosts Allen’s portfolio to 24 stations in 20 markets.

Stocks ended Wednesday mixed. The S&P 500 eked out a 0.1% gain after recovering from an early stumble and then losing much of its momentum by late afternoon. The benchmark index recovered some of its losses from a day earlier, but finished just short of its all-time high set on Monday.

Fox News Channel may have the biggest average audience, as well as gross revenues of the cable news networks, but when it comes to a key Madison Avenue metric — CPMs — MSNBC is the most valued. A MediaPost analysis of data released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center analyzing the 2020 audience size and economics of the major cable news networks, reveals that MSNBC generates an average of $423 per primetime household reached annually, which is about 10% more valuable than the second most valued cable news network, Fox News’ $386 per primetime household reached.

Nexstar Media Inc. filed a suit against Comcast Cable Communications charging that the cable company was breaching its retransmission contract by failing to pay fees for carrying WPIX New York. In the suit, filed in New York State Supreme Court, Nexstar is seeking unspecified damages, interest and other costs, including attorney’s fees.

Over-the-top advertising has become a surprisingly important business for companies that have been stockpiling television stations. Streaming revenue is letting broadcasters, including Cox Media Group, Sinclair Broadcast Group and the NBC and Fox O&Os, claim a foothold in the technology field and create advanced advertising products for clients enamored of digital and social media.

Grady Tripp, VP and chief diversity officer at Tegna, explains how fostering diversity, inclusion and equity at TV stations can be cultivated by maintaining an inclusive work environment, recognizing and valuing underrepresented groups and securing buy-in from leadership. This is the latest installment of How To, a TVNewsCheck original video series that solicits innovative, practical and actionable advice from TV experts in news, technology, sales and marketing. Earlier episodes: How To Make A Better News Story Working Solo, How To Sell Local OTT Advertising and How To Animate A News Story.