Radio+Television Business Report

Thanks to Gray Media, select games featuring the 2019 Stanley Cup Champions are heading to over-the-air television in a host of markets where the National Hockey League team's fan base is the biggest.

Audacy announced on December 16 that it planned to raise $100 million from the offering, with a strike price of $20 per share. The proceeds were to be used to pay down its current debt.  That's been scratched, due to lack of interest from potential participants.

With Dan Gilbert's Rocket Money brand rocketing to the top of the Spot Ten Cable report for the first week of 2025, a popular QSR has started the year with a fresh campaign that puts it in the list along with only one other quick-service restaurant brand.

The individual who since 2006 has served as the Creative Services Director at Hearst Television's flagship station in Boston has been promoted to the executive position of VP/Marketing for the New York-headquartered broadcast TV entity. He succeeds Suzanne Grethen, who recently retired as SVP of Promotion and Marketing.

Radio station owner Audacy Inc. and data analytics firm Claritas have forged a partnership just in time for this year's mega-sized affair. This, says Audacy, gives it enhanced measurement capabilities for clients through "a cross-platform multi-touch attribution solution for analyzing the impact of broadcast and digital audio campaigns."

The Radio Pirate of Mattapan is an individual the FCC wants stopped. It's warned the audio buccaneer's landlord that they must stop, or will pay the price for the unauthorized FM activity one can hear in a South Boston neighborhood.

FCC watchers and D.C. pundits are buzzing with the possibility that more, not less, Washington regulation over virtual MVPDs such as Hulu + Live TV — which will soon merge with Fubo in a multi-million deal announced early Monday — is on the way. It all stems from the adoption of a Report and Order by the Commission on December 31.

The General Sales Manager for Sinclair Inc.'s "FOX 47" in Wisconsin's state capital of Madison has been promoted to VP/GM after five years in his previous role.

Chris Bungo, an original founder of PromoSuite, which in February 2024 was acquired by  Banyan Software with the intention of merging it with vCreative, has stepped down from his Technology Consultant position.

A prominent valuation specialist for radio and television stations in the U.S. has done the math, and he's found that based on the population metric for Salem Media Group's end-of-2024 transaction that sees Educational Media Foundation acquire 7 radio stations, the dollar amount is perhaps higher than some may have expected for "stick licenses."

He began as an Account Executive, and has risen to Local Sales Manager, General Sales Manager and, most recently, Director of Sales for a seven-station Pacific Northwest radio group. Meet the new Senior Vice President and Market Manager of Audacy Inc.'s radio stations in the Rose City.

The broadcast technology company committed to bringing visuals to broadcast radio in the in-vehicle dashboard has hired an individual whose duties will be squarely focused on special projects and innovation.

He was the VP/GM of the CBS affiliate in Charlotte from 2015 to 2022 and has also been in National Sales at ABC and at such stations as WABC-TV in New York, in addition to serving as CEO of a Florida-based homebuilder. Now, he's taking the top local leadership role for TEGNA's CBS affiliate serving Columbia, S.C.

It's a new deal that extends the life of the company's affiliation with NBC at 11 Scripps-owned stations. In related news, Scripps Networks' VP of Brand Strategy has been promoted to Sr. Vice President of Marketing for the national arm of The E.W. Scripps Co.

The iHeartMedia-owned spoken word network led by President Tony Coles has appointed a new VP of News and Content, and he'll be responsible for the day-to-day leadership of the newsroom and its team of journalists, with a focus on developing news content of interest to African American audio consumers.

When FOX Corporation, Warner Bros. Discovery and ESPN parent The Walt Disney Company teamed up to create the forthcoming Venu Sports, "sports first" vMVPD Fubo went to federal court to try to stop the deal. Now, it appears that won't happen — Fubo is being acquired by Disney. Details and confirmation of the deal arrived Monday.

There's a new Director of Sales for Streamline Publishing's media division, which includes the Radio + Television Business Report, Radio Ink and the division's signature conferences, including the Hispanic Radio Conference and Forecast.

The first media network dedicated to sports betting will once again supply its audio sports betting programming to the nation's lone satellite radio service provider, starting January 17. That's the date VSiN content will return to SiriusXM.

It's been talked about for three years: by law, FM radio signals for Switzerland's much-consumed public broadcast stations were to come to a close-down by the end of 2024. That's now transpired, with DAB+ the main method one can tune to the audio channels without streaming.

TORONTO — “Media revenue in the fourth quarter was softer than expected, affecting our revenue target for the year.” That’s the glum news from the President/CEO of one of North America’s biggest communications and entertainment companies, as it announced when analysts and investors can expect to receive the company’s year-end and fourth quarter 2024 earnings report. […]