Radio+Television Business Report

Three Boston TV employees who hauled cameras and live gear ahead of a blizzard get to make their case that the prep was paid work. A federal judge says the clock may start earlier than WHDH-TV believes, and most of the suit survives.

Thirteen years after first taking over the programming under an LMA, a South Texas broadcaster is lining up to outright own three Alice, TX signals serving the Corpus Christi area with Spanish-language Christian and Tejano music programming.

Disney Entertainment Television’s new money chief didn’t have to move far for the job. A finance executive with nearly a decade at the company, most of it around Freeform and ABC, is now the division’s CFO, with the networks, stations, and news group under his purview.

Clocks fall back this weekend, which means everyone gets an extra hour on Sunday. How’d you like an extra $300, too? Forecast 2027 early bird pricing ends on Halloween night at the stroke of midnight, right before the clocks change. Don’t sleep on your chance to save!

A law firm that worked on iHeartMedia’s 2018 bankruptcy is preparing to shut down after 95 years. Weil, Gotshal & Manges has recommended an orderly wind-down, with a partner vote expected within days, following failed merger talks and a string of high-profile partner departures.

Some FM stations that lose a tower can’t move to another one because the FCC’s spacing rules say no. A petition now open for comment would let them, as long as the move causes no added interference and Urban One’s chief executive is among its backers.

A SportsCenter anchor with more than three decades of credits is getting the Alliance for Women in Media’s Gracies Icon Award. ESPN’s Hannah Storm will be among those honored at the Gracies Leadership Awards on November 16 at Tribeca 360° in New York City.

Hubbard Radio has brought back a former Alexandria operations manager to run the shop. Kris Valentine returns as General Manager of its Alexandria and Wadena, MN stations after a stop at Leighton Broadcasting, and he and Chelsea Valentine are restarting their morning show on KIKV-FM.

Radio’s ad return jumped 27 points in a 2012 study, then a recent do-over came back flat. A new IAB guide explains why audio keeps getting shortchanged in media mix models, and names the one party with the power to change that.

The Broadcasters Foundation of America is widening a college scholarship that once reached only broadcast families. Students with no industry ties can now apply, and six new awards join the original $10,000 scholarship, bringing the yearly total to $25,000 across seven awards.

NPR has found its next product chief at a magazine company, not a public media one. David Berzin joins as Senior Vice President of Product and Data, with a brief that includes engagement, revenue diversification, and the data infrastructure behind NPR’s Network tools.

Twenty-one Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee have a message for Senate leaders as another Republican FCC nomination looms: don’t confirm one without the other party. Specifically, the full-term renomination for Commissioner Anna Gomez.

A small signal in Kansas City is about to get a new owner from a long way north. A Minnesota university has put its name to a deal for a single FM translator, with the likely result being more Christian talk and teaching for the area.

Pacific Media Group has promoted Sherri Hamamura Grimes to President of its Radio Division for all islands. She will keep her role as General Manager of Maui Radio operations. Born and raised on Kauaʻi, she joined PMG in 1999 and has been Vice President and General Manager of its Maui Radio operations since 2019.

Vigilance or intimidation? FCC Chairman Brendan Carr says his recent warning targets only polls that were never real, not honest poll coverage. Commissioner Anna Gomez says she suspects “the threat itself” is the point, in a push toward self-censorship, as questions on Disney and political ad rates also followed today’s Open Meeting.

Political money headed to streaming TV is arriving with conditions. A new survey of advertising decision-makers finds that advertisers planning political campaigns want spend efficiency and accountability first, and that reaching enough local voters, with confidence in who they are, remains the sticking point.

Cumulus has prevailed in two federal courts, and Nielsen wants the US Supreme Court to take another look. A November date at the high court is now attached to that request, though that mark on the calendar only decides when the justices look.

Audacy’s local sports stations have been on SiriusXM for less than two months, and the satellite company is already pointing to the results. That comes as profit, cash flow, and the full-year forecast all moved up in Q3, while some other areas of the company slipped, causing some new concerns for the remaining two months of 2026.

Cogeco’s US cable business is still losing customers, and the company’s answer now includes a TV streaming product launched in the US, along with wireless, a new digital brand, and new sales channels. Canada is growing, while its radio group saw revenue fall nearly 19%, and the fiscal 2027 outlook points to lower overall.

Is an AI-generated voice that sounds like a radio host a use of that host’s identity? A California court isn’t saying yes, but it isn’t saying no either. Former NPR host David Greene’s suit against Google over NotebookLM now moves ahead, with the facts still to be fought out.