Radio+Television Business Report

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.

Stating that defendants “likely used public dollars to unlawfully finance a national media campaign in the final weeks before the November 2026 elections,” US District Judge Loren L. AliKhan has frozen a $20 million government ad campaign that put campaign-style spots on national TV, but her decision is raising questions for those that carried the spots.

Broadcasters hoping for movement on ownership limits will keep waiting, at least until December. The focal point of FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s November meeting agenda is an order authorizing state and local jails to jam contraband cellphones, the lead item on a five-item November meeting agenda he previewed in his monthly blog post, themed around Halloween.

TelevisaUnivision’s third quarter ran on two tracks: a World Cup-fueled 51% revenue jump in Mexico, and a 24% drop in US advertising, with a $372 million write-down on broadcast licenses tipping the company into an operating loss despite a 9% gain in total revenue.

The Republican National Committee and Republican Party of Texas have taken a quarrelsome FCC question about who pays what for political airtime to a federal court in Amarillo with a request that would either widen candidates’ rate break or, as a fallback, end it.

Nasdaq-traded Comcast spinoff Versant on Wednesday brought to life a quartet of free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels tied to "past franchises" from CNBC, Oxygen and E!. This grows Versant's FAST portfolio to 13, and brings the offerings to Amazon Prime Video and, as of November 3, The Roku Channel.

After 14 years of operating the Deerfield Media-owned station via joint sales and shared services agreements, the company led by Chris Ripley is moving forward with purchasing the property — formerly home of The CW in San Antonio — it wanted to own in 2012.

A Consent Decree with the Acting Chief of the FCC's Media Bureau clears the way for the license renewal of certain Nexstar Media Group properties under a Commission microscope for the amount of commercials airing during children's programming. An online public inspection file flaw was also under review.

At question is the issue of governance of SBS, and it is one that may be unclear in the filings presented to the Commission by SBS through its legal counsel at Lerman Senter on behalf of company Legal Counsel and Chief Operating Officer Richard Lara.

FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty has been chosen to lead the Commission’s rollout and implementation of the U.S. Cyber Trust Mark program. She'll work closely with the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau and the program’s administrators as the voluntary cybersecurity labeling program moves toward use by manufacturers and consumers.

In broadcasting, term sheets are a key scoreboard, and private equity, strategic buyers, and lenders are all keeping a watchful eye on which companies have the scale, discipline, and positioning to win the next cycle and which will become someone else’s asset. By this time next year, many questions will have answers. At Forecast 2027, you'll be one step ahead.

The nation's largest single licensee of broadcast radio stations has announced when it will release its Q3 results and subsequently host an earnings call for investors and analysts to review the results. They'll get no more than 30 minutes to digest the digits ahead of CEO Bob Pittman's introductory commentary.

She's a familiar figure to Hispanic Radio Conference attendees who appeared on the cover of Streamline Publishing's Radio Ink in June 2023, in recognition of her experience as a “agency fortuneteller.” Come January 1, 2027, the longtime VP of Media Integration at Zubi Advertising Services will be elevated to the role of Executive Director and Head.