Business

Gains for some tech giants nudged the S&P to another record high Monday. Investors are trying to gauge the strength of the economic recovery and whether emerging signs of inflation will be transitory, as the central bank believes. The Fed delivers its interest rate policy update Wednesday afternoon.

The broadcast executive with nearly 20 years of leadership experience will oversee the broadcast and digital operations of Nexstar’s KSNT, KTMJ and the company’s operational agreements with Vaughan Media’s, KTKA.

Despite all the impassioned pleas to salvage local news coverage, the reality is there’s a demand-side problem.

Premion, Tegna’s connected TV advertising company, said it expanded its relationship with IHS Markit to use Polk Automotive Solutions data to target ad campaigns and measure their results. Automotive advertisers using the Premion platform to create regional and local streaming campaigns will be able to incorporate Polk audience segments and data on sales, make and model, price and vehicle type.

The CEO of NBCUniversal said the company enjoyed robust demand in the TV industry’s upfront market, but offered no tangible detains on volume or pricing to help bolster his case. “It was the strongest upfront I think probably in the history of NBCUniversal,” said Jeff Shell, NBCU’s CEO, speaking during an investor conference with Credit Suisse Monday. “We saw results in this upfront far beyond what we thought we’d see. Demand was extremely strong.” He attributed that dynamic to an increase in demand from advertisers eager to ramp up sales as the nation emerges from the coronavirus pandemic as the TV networks’ supply of ratings continues to diminish as viewers migrate to streaming services.

Today, some of the largest newspaper groups in the country —such as Tribune, McClatchy and Media News Group — are owned, controlled by or in debt to hedge funds or private equity groups. In fact, hedge funds and other financial firms control half of the daily newspapers in the United States.

As Louisiana moves closer to legalizing online sports betting, WBRZ, the Manship Media-owned ABC affiliate in Baton Rouge, is betting heavily that programs dedicated to those who gamble on sports is the next step for the online sports betting industry to transition from advertising on local TV to programming there.

New jobs posted to TVNewsCheck’s Media Job Center this week include openings for a multimedia sales account exec, a news producer, a general manager, a national sales manager, a broadcast technology manager, a senior account exec and a digital sales director.

ViacomCBS and Comcast can succeed without acquiring other businesses, IAC Chairman Barry Diller says. He described Comcast as being in a “fantastic position” with a cable and broadband business that hedges against NBCUniversal. “I don’t think they have to do anything,” he said of whether Comcast needs to spin off a business or get bigger.

A new lineup of Saturday programming and a surge of post-pandemic spending by Madison Avenue helped the CW boost its volume of advertising commitments in TV’s annual “upfront” market, a sign that advertisers continue to make the medium a central part of their plans even as they are showing new interest in chasing viewers to new streaming venues. The network, jointly owned by ViacomCBS and AT&T’s WarnerMedia, has wrapped its upfront negotiations, according to a person familiar with the matter, and believes it has obtained a greater volume of advertising for its next programming cycle than it did in 2020.

Stocks notched modest gains on Friday and the S&P 500 posted its third winning week in a row. The benchmark index edged up 0.2% after spending much of the day in the red. The small uptick was enough to lift the S&P 500 to an all-time high for the second day in a row.

Charter still values being able to sell traditional video packages alongside its broadband products but CFO Chris Winfrey suggested that a breaking point is coming. Speaking at an Evercore investor event, Winfrey reaffirmed that video is still an in-demand product and that it’s still profitable for Charter. But he warned changes are needed to ensure that his company can continue assembling attractive products that can be packaged for different customers with different budgets.

As viewers watch more streaming video content and cancel their cable/satellite subscriptions, broadcast station owners have been doubling down on free ad supported over-the-air television by launching free over-the-air digital multicast networks. Among the station groups on the diginets bandwagon are Scripps, Sinclair, Tegna, Nexstar, CBS and NBCU.

This year’s upfront ad-sales session is shaping up to be one of the fastest in recent memory. But some TV companies are working to slow things down. At a time when advertisers appear willing to capitulate to significant pricing increases, they are still balking at demands from both Discovery and ViacomCBS, according to three media buying executives and other people familiar with the tone of these annual negotiations for commercial inventory between U.S. media companies and Madison Avenue.

Executives from E.W. Scripps, Cox Media Group, CBC and Disney told attendees of a TVNewsCheck virtual conference that advertisers are warming to the fact that neither a linear- nor digital-only approach can be as effective as a multiplatform buy. Above, Maggie Drake, Scripps senior director, OTT revenue, said she is starting to see advertisers gravitate toward digital and away from linear ads.

In just a few shorts years, esports has exploded onto the scene, attracting massive viewership and generating revenue in quite distinct ways. Will its exponential growth continue, or are there unknown risks in its uncharted territory?

U.S. stocks ended higher Thursday, easing the S&P 500’s weekly loss. The benchmark index rose 0.5%, and is on track for its third straight weekly gain. Bond yields initially rose, then mostly fell after a much-anticipated report showing a big jump in inflation last month.

The outlook for U.S. ad spending has improved considerably for this year, as have estimates for 2020, which included a recession attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a mid-year update released this morning by GroupM’s Business Intelligence unit. GroupM now projects U.S. ad spending will expand 16.5% — 22.3% if the incremental impact of 2020 political ad spending is removed — a marked improvement from estimates it released in its last update in March (+9.1% and + 14.9%, respectively for total U.S. ad growth and excluding political ad spending).

The provision of holistic linear and OTT measurements will provide thousands of advertisers with incremental reach and performance information on Tegna’s 64 TV stations and Premion streaming service.

Tensions between Disney and Comcast over their joint ownership of Hulu are heating up. The two companies are feuding over Disney’s decision last year to not launch Hulu overseas, a move that Comcast believes undermined its growth potential and valuation. The issue has inflamed arbitration proceedings now underway between the two companies over the value of Hulu, say people familiar with the situation. The dispute is a prelude to what could be a bigger fight in 2024, when Disney is scheduled to buy Comcast out of its minority stake in Hulu at a price that could be anywhere from $9 billion to $13 billion. Buying Comcast’s stake would give Disney full ownership of Hulu.

The broadcaster is silent as speculation it is victim of ransomware hack continues.

The latest tallies from BIA Advisory Services shows the industry reached $19.7 billion last year despite the pandemic. It sees core advertising growing this year as the economy begins to rebound.

Mark Kurtz joins from Nexstar’s WAVY Norfolk, Va., where he was news director.

U.S. stock indexes ended lower Wednesday. The S&P 500 slipped 0.2%, erasing its meager gain from a day earlier. The benchmark index’s modest moves this week have it on track for its first weekly loss in three weeks.

Comscore has signed the first media company to participate in its national addressable TV programmer measurement trials: WarnerMedia. Under the agreement, which began in late 2020, WarnerMedia is the first to test Comscore’s program, which allows publishers to execute and measure their national linear addressable inventory across multiple MVPD and connected TV providers for the first time.

California lawmakers are seeking a large increase to the state’s film and TV tax credit program, a $180 million hike that would bring the Golden State more in parity with New York. The state Senate Budget Committee adopted a proposal last week that would provide $90 million per year for 2021-22 and 2022-23. That is a far greater figure than Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to increase the tax incentives by $30 million in the next fiscal year.