Dedrick Russell is returning to Gray Television’s CBS affiliate WBTV Charlotte, N.C., as executive producer of community content where the station says “he will have an integral role in the […]
The owners of All3Media, Britain’s largest independent TV production company, are exploring options that include cashing out on their joint venture in a deal worth more than 1 billion pounds ($1.26 billion), three people familiar with the matter said. Liberty Global and Warner Bros. Discovery are considering selling their stakes in All3Media to a third party or one of them buying the other out, the sources said.
Facebook parent company Meta is threatening to remove news content on its platforms Instagram and Facebook in California if the state legislature passes a new proposal that would make tech companies pay publishers for news content. “If the Journalism Preservation Act passes, we will be forced to remove news from Facebook and Instagram rather than pay into a slush fund that primarily benefits big, out-of-state media companies under the guise of aiding California publishers,” reads a statement posted to Twitter by Meta spokesperson Andy Stone.
BRAND CONNECTIONS
KARE President-GM Bill Dallman announced that he is leaving Tegna’s Minneapolis NBC affiliate nearly two years to the day he arrived. In a memo obtained by TVSpy, Dallman told staff they’d be hearing from Tegna Senior Vice President Larry Delia about what’s next.
John Rouse, who has been with The Walt Disney Co. for the past 33 years, most recently as EVP of affiliate relations for the ABC Television Network, is stepping down at the end of July. Rouse announced his upcoming retirement Wednesday in a note to ABC affiliates and station group heads. The position, which reports to Justin Connolly, president, Disney Platform Distribution, will be refilled.
Disney reached its 7,000 layoffs goal, handing out notices to the remaining employees impacted in its third round of job cuts last Friday ahead of the Memorial Day holiday weekend. The Mouse House’s target was to conclude these companywide layoffs, which focused most heavily on the media divisions and left the parks largely untouched, ahead of the summer. The company still has plans to eliminate more roles internationally over a period of time, according to a source close to the situation.
Exclusives
CLOSING BELL
Dow Drops 135, Nasdaq Loses 82, S&P Falls 26
Wall Street slipped Wednesday as stocks slumped worldwide over worries about the strength of the global economy and inflation.
Frustrated by job losses, office policies and rising carbon emissions, white-collar Amazon workers are demanding more from leadership.
Today, NBCUniversal announced that Elyssa Byck will join NBCUniversal Advertising Sales & Partnerships as senior vice president, enterprise partnerships and operations, reporting directly to Krishan Bhatia, president-chief business officer. NBCU said in this newly […]
The National Association of Broadcasters Leadership Foundation (NABLF) says award-winning ABC News broadcaster Gio Benitez will host of the 2023 Celebration of Service to America Awards. The ceremony, which honors […]
Women In Media (WiM) has chosen Juliane Grosso to receive its Women In Media’s 2023 Icon Award. Grosso is the CEO of Cine Gear Expo which she founded with her late husband, […]
Citing “macroeconomic factors,” Dentsu this morning became the latest major agency holding company to revise its 2023 ad outlook downward. Dentsu now estimates global ad spending will rise 3.3%, down half a point from the 3.8% it projected in its last forecast in December 2022. Dentsu also reduced its U.S. at growth projection for the year down nearly a percentage point, to 2.6% from the 3.7% growth rate it predicted in its year-end 2022 forecast.
Diamond Sports, which owns 19 networks under the Bally Sports banner, said in a statement Tuesday that it decided “not to provide additional funding to the San Diego RSN that would enable it to make the rights payment to the San Diego Padres during the grace period and will no longer be broadcasting Padres games after Tuesday.” The Padres become the first team that MLB will take over production of its broadcasts. MLB set up a local media department during the offseason to prepare for a bankruptcy filing by Sinclair Broadcast Group’s Diamond Sports, which took place in March.
WEEK ENDING MAY 29
Station Trading Roundup: 1 Deal, $1,000,000
The purchase of WSNN-LD Sarasota, Fla., by Nexstar Media Group tops the latest list of TV station transactions submitted to the FCC for its approval, according to BIA Advisory Services.
CLOSING BELL
Dow Drops 51, Nasdaq Rises 42, S&P Finishes Flat
Wall Street churned to a mixed finish on Tuesday. Tuesday marked the U.S. stock market’s first trading since President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy struck a deal to allow the U.S. government to borrow more money, which would let it avoid a default on its debt. They now must convince Congress to approve it before the U.S. government runs out of cash to pay its bills, which could happen as soon as Monday.
Recent research by Samba TV and HarrisX may shed further light on how consumers are likely to respond to Netflix having last week moved to cut off free password sharing and charge $7.99 for adding an outside-the-household user. On the upside, more than four in 10 of the 2,500 U.S. adults polled at the end of March said they would be willing to pay more to share their account with someone outside of their home, with 41% saying they would pay up to $10 more per month, and another 10% that they would pay up to $15 more.
Sinclair Broadcast Group said it sold its controlling interest in Chicago sports network Stadium to Jerry Reinsdorf’s Silver Chalice. Reinsdorf is the owner of the Chicago White Sox of Major League Baseball and the Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Chalice has owned a stake in Stadium since it was started in 2017.
CBS, Cox and Fox have agreed to pay a total of $48 million to end claims in Illinois federal court that they participated in a scheme among major U.S. broadcasters to artificially inflate television advertising prices.
Fox’s handling of the defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems, which settled for $787.5 million, left many unanswered questions.
New jobs posted to TVNewsCheck’s Media Job Center include openings for a morning news anchor/reporter, evening meteorologist, latenight news anchor/reporter, news reporter, transactional sales manager and multimedia journalist.
TVNewsCheck will not be distributing our AM, PM and Marketing Monday newsletters today. We’ll return on Tuesday, May 30. Pause and give thanks to those who made the ultimate sacrifice so we can enjoy our freedom.
President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reached an “agreement in principle” to raise the nation’s legal debt ceiling late Saturday as they raced to strike a deal to limit federal spending and avert a potentially disastrous U.S. default. However, the agreement risks angering both Democratic and Republican sides with the concessions made to reach it.
CLOSING BELL
Dow Climbs 329, Nasdaq Gains 278, S&P Rises 54
Tech led more gains on Wall Street on Friday. The upbeat finish to the week for major indexes comes amid lingering anxiety over persistently high inflation, the risk of a U.S. debt default and broadly weak corporate earnings.
The era of consolidation in podcasting seemed like it might have effectively started and ended when Spotify, Amazon, SiriusXM and others gobbled up major names in the space in an effort to diversify their audio lineups. But now, four years after Spotify got into podcasting by buying Anchor and Gimlet Media, we’re witnessing the dawn of a second wave. This time around, the companies up for sale are smaller production studios and networks.
Former CBS shareholders reached a proposed $167.5 million settlement to resolve allegations that Shari Redstone, the daughter of late media magnate Sumner Redstone, pressured the company into an unfair merger that created ViacomCBS Inc, now known as Paramount Global, according to a court filing.
Comcast Corp. CEO Brian Roberts has a penchant for lining up a huge deal around every five years or so. It was 2018 the last time he made a big acquisition, and Wall Street is ready for his next dramatic move. Gaming and streaming could be in the cards.
DirecTV, which held the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket for nearly three decades until YouTube took over the package, has struck a deal to continue distributing it to bars, restaurants and other commercial businesses. The satellite operator, which is owned by AT&T and private equity firm TPG, closed a multi-year agreement with EverPass Media, a specialist in delivering live sports and entertainment programming to businesses. The arrangement begins with the upcoming NFL season.
Workers from other unions have shown solidarity with the strikers, catching entertainment companies off guard.
