Radio+Television Business Report

RBR+TVBR OBSERVATION

Travel around Manchester, England, and you’ll hear radio stations with the same branding — Radio X, Capital, Heart, Smooth Radio, and Greatest Hits Radio — as other stations across Great Britain.

In Australia, the Nova and KIIS brands can be found in both Melbourne and Sydney.

Now, Canada is swiftly becoming a nation where national branding of radio stations, while retaining their unique program offerings, is being employed to help attract more advertising.

Interestingly, it hasn’t exactly happened in the U.S. — yet.

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In just days, the much-anticipated — and heavily marketed — discovery + OTT platform bows. How is Discovery telling consumers about its pending debut? Ironically, it is using cable TV to push viewers away from MVPDs and toward its soon-to-debut streaming service.

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At Spot TV, GEICO is most certainly one of the stalwarts with respect to ad activity by commercial count.

Indeed, it is No. 2 for the week ending December 27. But, there’s a big new No. 1, and it is a germ-fighting brand.

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RBR+TVBR EXCLUSIVE

Gene Loving has enjoyed a remarkable career in radio broadcasting. In the 1960s, his syndicated interviews with The Beatles could be heard on stations across the U.S., as he attracted big audiences for his daily radio program at WGH-AM 1310 in Norfolk.

In 1991, he co-founded the original Max Media Properties, and its current incarnation dates to 2001, when Loving teamed with local TV sales veteran John Trinder and the late Chuck McFadden — a former GM of WTVZ-TV in Norfolk — to build a company that today includes radio stations in the Tidewater region, including WGH.

Now, the ownership partners are shifting at Max, with Loving gaining a greater stake in the company.

It’s thanks, in part, to the departure of a key institutional investor.

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It was a largely expected deal. Still, the Media Bureau of the FCC used the time-honored tactic of burying big news before a major holiday to tell the world of its decision.

It has given its OK to a transaction that will see a global private investment firm and a related media-focused operating and investment company take majority ownership interest in the biggest multimedia company targeting U.S. Hispanics.

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A radio industry notable has moved forward in forming a “SPAC” focused on sports media. It is an effort sparked by the man who once owned the Seattle Mariners Baseball Club.

But, it also involves the man who serves as President/COO of the company this industry leader founded in 1979, and three board members.

Among those board members: the former head of ESPN Audio, Traug Keller.

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For those who were raised in Upstate New York, SPAC is shorthand for a popular outdoor concert venue in Saratoga Springs. On Wall Street, a “SPAC” is shorthand for a “Special Purpose Acquisition Company” — like the one Cumulus Media co-founder Lew Dickey Jr. created for an early 2019 merger with international digital music streaming platform Akazoo.

Now, another radio industry notable of the last 25 years has moved forward in forming a “SPAC” focused on sports media. It is an effort sparked by the man who once owned the Seattle Mariners Baseball Club.

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For years, it was safe to say that GEICO was the biggest user of broadcast and cable to reach consumers, given their dominance at spot radio, spot cable and spot TV according to Media Monitors. That’s not true today, as one of its auto insurance competitors has surged to the top of the latest Spot Radio report.

As shown below, State Farm is the big leader at Spot Radio, and accounts for a stunning 94,230 spot plays.

By comparison, GEICO is ranked No. 8 for the week ending December 27, with some 45,757 spot plays detected. That puts GEICO slightly below Progressive in an ever-competitive brand category.

While State Farm is firmly ensconced at the top, Bank of America and Merrill are again major users of spot radio, as is Pfizer — the maker of one of two approved COVID-19 vaccines.

An AM/FM combo serving Minot, N.D., has been involuntary placed into an estate administered by Virginia-based attorney Todd Steiner, following the recent death of the stations’ licensee.

The estate is being led by the deceased owner’s son, who continues to manage business affairs of the properties.

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A Class B AM licensed to Salt Lake City, and an unbuilt FM translator at 94.5 MHz in Draper, Utah, are among the assets that have been licensed to Vic Michael. He’s been trading translators across Hawaii and the Southwestern U.S. over the last several months, and Michael is at it again.

This time, it sees his Utah LMA partner converting its operation to a purchase.

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Nexstar Media Group late Christmas Eve successfully reached “a comprehensive multi-year distribution agreement with DISH Network.”

The agreement restores Nexstar’s 164 local television stations across the country and Nexstar’s wholly-owned cable network, WGN America, to DISH Network’s programming line-up. WGN America will also launch on DISH’s streaming service, Sling TV, in early 2021. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The agreement means that more than 5 million DISH subscribers will again have access to the network and local entertainment, sports, and news programming provided by Nexstar television stations and by WGN America, home of the prime-time national newscast, NewsNation.

During the last three months, Nexstar successfully completed more than 250 distribution agreements with its satellite, cable, telco, and streaming partners, it says.

Combined with similar agreements reached with other providers in 2019, Nexstar adds it “now has long-term visibility regarding future retransmission and carriage fees covering 90% of the company’s footprint through 2022.”

Nexstar’s local television stations and WGN America had been off DISH Network’s satellite system since Dec. 2. “We regret the inconvenience experienced by our viewers and look forward to again providing them with leading network and local programming,” Nexstar says.

Serving as Chairman of the FCC has been the honor of a lifetime. And soon, my time in this position will conclude. 

Those are the words of Ajit Pai, who will preside over his final FCC Open Meeting come January 13. The meeting won’t involve any new business, with Bureau, Office, and Task Force leaders summarizing the work their teams have done over the last four years in a series of presentations.

And, it could involve a lot of salutes to the man some detest for “killing net neutrality” while others highly admire for his wit, affability, love of the Kansas City Chiefs, and that oversized Reese’s coffee mug.

RBR+TVBR OBSERVATION: Chairman Pai, we hardly new you. But, in the time you served on the FCC, you proved to be a champion of local media. From tiny AM radio stations to the biggest TV stations, you showed you care — perhaps a lot more visibly than your predecessor. The radio and TV broadcasters of America owe you much gratitude, and we will miss you and that coffee mug of yours. And, who can we taunt when the Buffalo Bills advance to the Super Bowl? While our Editor-in-Chief met you once — by chance at Reagan National Airport and you returned to D.C. from a Boston event in November 2019 — you were pleasant, and took time to chat in that airport corridor. Be well, sir, and best of luck on your next role.

 

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American Tower Corporation has closed its acquisition of InSite Wireless Group.

The total consideration for the transaction, subject to certain post-closing adjustments, was approximately $3.5 billion, including the assumption or repayment of existing InSite debt, and was funded by a combination of cash on hand and revolver borrowings.

American Tower Chief Executive Officer Tom Bartlett said, “We are pleased to close this immediately accretive transaction and expect to quickly begin driving new leasing activity on these high-quality, well-located assets. As 5G densification initiatives in the U.S. accelerate and network deployments in international markets continue, we believe we are well positioned to generate attractive, sustainable long-term growth, including on these new sites, while playing a key role in enhancing mobile broadband connectivity.”

American Tower expects the assets acquired from InSite to generate approximately $150 million in property revenue and approximately $115 million in gross margin in 2021.

One of Kansas’ only independent broadcasters has just seen one of its two UHF television stations placed into receivership.

It’s a channel that serves both Wichita and Hutchinson with a host of digital multicast networks including COZI TV, Estrella TV, Bounce, LIGHTtv and NewsNet.

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In the border city of El Paso, an FM translator at 88.1 MHz and its sibling at 101.7 MHz have offered Christian talk and teaching programs tied to KELP-FM 89.3, a facility located to the north in Mesquite, N.M.

That’s changing. The nation’s No. 2 licensee by station count is buying them.

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On December 22, RBR+TVBR reported on a transaction that will see a reborn “Ritmo” offer Tropical programming to Hispanics across the Delaware Valley, courtesy of Miguel Amador and his Ritmo Broadcasting.

Ritmo also operates a Top 40 operation with call letters that pay homage to a pioneering hit music FM that once served Philadelphia, and a FCC filing now shows he’s buying the AM and FM translator used to power up WIFI.

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Keeping it would have placed a reconstituted iHeartMedia over FCC local ownership limits.

As such, a Class C1 FM licensed to a Minnesota town that serves Grand Fork, N. Dakota, was placed in one of three trusts overseen by Barry Drake, the retired President/CEO of former Jacksonville-based radio station owner Backyard Broadcasting. 

Now, just over two years later, iHeart is reclaiming this FM.

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Television viewers in the largest TV market in the Pacific Northwest can now get a taste of the future.

And, it includes broadcast radio.

Sinclair Broadcast Group subsidiary ONE Media 3.0 has combined both television and radio services for delivery in Seattle, thanks to ATSC 3.0 technology and the NEXTGEN TV voluntary rollout now underway.

How is broadcast radio involved?

Using radio content from Sinclair’s over-the-top service STIRR, the audio channels will be available for free immediately to anyone with a NEXTGEN television set connected to the internet.

But, what over-the-air radio is included? Sinclair’s press release, interestingly, references “radio channels” that are actually Stingray-produced music channels as found on Hotwire’s Fision cable TV service.

Intriguingly, Sinclair did not even reference its lone radio properties: News KOMO-AM 1000 & FM 97.7; Hot AC KPLZ-FM “Star 101.5”; and Talk KVI-AM 570.

However, Sinclair confirms that the Broadcast App developed by ONE Media 3.0 “is the centerpiece for delivery of these new services.”

Piloted by ONE Media 3.0 in Nashville, NEXTGEN radio services, branded as “STIRR XT,” are what’s now available in Seattle.

In Sinclair’s words, “The new technology brings a new ‘age of radio’ into the listening environment of NEXTGEN viewers by utilizing NEXTGEN-enabled TVs and mobile devices to expand the reach of audio services.  Combining these Internet audio services with over-the-air radio is next on the horizon for the Seattle market.”

While it did not offer one set of call letters as part of this new service, Michael Bouchard, ONE Media’s VP of Technology Strategy, said, “This breakthrough technology lays the groundwork for our future plans of enhancing the reception of terrestrial over-the-air radio services throughout the country, as NEXTGEN TV is deployed by broadcasters everywhere.”

 

BRADENTON, FLA. — Gray Television has moved forward with the submission to the FCC of a formal Good Faith Complaint against Frontier Communications in response to the MVPD’s failure to reach a new retransmission consent agreement tied to one of its legacy systems for an ABC affiliate serving Sarasota and Manatee Counties along Florida’s Gulf Coast, and two stations in South Carolina.

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BRADENTON, FLA. — The Republican U.S. House of Representatives Member representing Florida’s Sarasota and Manatee Counties has reached out to the Federal Communications Commission to express his concerns over the failure of Gray Television and Frontier Communications to reach a new retransmission consent agreement for one of its legacy systems and the primary ABC affiliate for this portion of the vast Tampa-St. Petersburg-Lakeland DMA.

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In a formal letter dated Dec. 22 addressed to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, House Member Vern Buchanan expressed his concern “at the sudden blackout of a local news station in my Congressional district.”

Addressing the December 18 removal, by law, of Gray Television-owned WWSB-7 in Sarasota on Frontier FiberOptic TV, a.k.a. FiOS TV by Frontier, channel lineups in the absence of a new retransmission consent agreement, Buchanan says Frontier “abruptly deleted the local ABC station,” and instead began carrying WFTS-28 in Tampa on the cable channel previously home to WWSB.

“My constituents deserve an explanation as to why this happened,” Buchanan asks.

While Buchanan recognizes that both WWSB and WFTS are ABC affiliates within the same DMA, he points out that WFTS airs programming that is akin to less than 50% of WWSB’s weekly programming schedule.

As such, Buchanan concludes, “I urge the FCC to take any appropriate action to help ensure that Frontier acts in the public interest and that Gray Television receives fair and equitable treatment in their efforts to provide local news, sports and entertainment to my constituents.”

A Legacy TV Services Provider Sparks The Latest Retrans Spat Gray Television is dealing with a retransmission consent feud focused on a single Sunshine State property. The MVPD at the center of the dispute, which has led to the latest “blackout” of a free-to-air TV station? Frontier Communications. And, it’s a complex matter involving legacy customers to a grandfathered service.