National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE), the global business association for content producers, distributors, streamers and buyers across all platforms, has unveiled the recipients for its 2022 Iris Awards.
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NEW YORK — With the transition in power from Vince Sadusky to Wade Davis at Univision Communications in January 2021, a veteran sales executive exited the multimedia company devoted to serving U.S. Hispanic consumers.
Now, he’s resurfaced at one of the fastest growing competitors to Univision.
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Say goodbye to the logo accompanying this story, and to the “MDP” stock symbol from our daily Wall Street Report.
Meredith Corporation as you knew it is now another faded company of broadcast media’s past, as Gray Television on Wednesday completed its $2.8 billion merger and subsequent spin-off of its non-local broadcast television assets to the Barry Diller-led IAC.
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The last remaining properties tied to Red River Broadcast Co. have been spun, in a transaction that saw Kalil & Co. serve as the exclusive broker in the transaction signed off by Kathy Lau and John Exline.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. — For the first time since 1992, reauthorization of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) could be at hand.
A bill introduced Wednesday by the Senate Commerce Committee’s Ranking Member and the top Republican on the House Subcommittee on Communications, Media and Broadband would do so. And, the legislation would also reform NTIA’s role in a way.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Russell Senate Office Building is just a one-mile walk from the FCC’s new headquarters. Yet, the path for Gigi Sohn in earning the role of a Democratic Commissioner at the agency may be as wide as the Anacostia River.
With vocal support from some and vehement opposition from others, Sohn’s selection by President Biden to fill out the FCC has become one of the most controversial in modern times. On Wednesday, Senate Commerce Committee Members scrutinized Sohn, along with three other nominees for governmental agencies.
While there were some fireworks, the midday session was as emblematic of a Capitol Hill nomination hearing.
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NEW YORK — The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM), in conjunction with Project X Institute’s Jon Watts and Alan Wolk of TVREV, have announced the development of a “Guide to Converged TV Measurement Providers.”
Upon completion in early 2022, the guide seeks to provide a landscape of the entire Converged TV measurement ecosystem in the U.S, as well as a comparative analysis of the companies who are conducting converged TV audience measurement.
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It uses a 250-watt FM translator covering much of the Huntsville, Ala., metropolitan area, even parts of Decatur.
Soon, it will no longer be the home of an iHeartMedia “ALT”-branded modern rock presentation relaying broadcasts found on the HD3 signal of Class C2 WQRT-FM “100.3 The River.”
That’s because the FM translator’s licensee is selling the facility to Educational Media Foundation.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Outside, the weather couldn’t be more perfect for the first day of December, with bright sun and temperatures in the mid 50s.
Inside the Russell Senate Office Building on the north side of Capitol Hill, things couldn’t be sunnier for acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, who is one step closer to having the “acting” title removed from her business cards.
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He was a husband, a father, and a “Poppy.” And, he was the founder and President of the Daystar Television Network, a faith-based operation seen on owned-and-operated stations across the U.S. and a channel nationally distributed on Comcast, DirecTV and Dish Network. In Canada, it is available on Bell TV.
Marcus Lamb has passed away at the age of 64.
The cause of death: COVID-19.
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In May, an African American media mogul whose holdings include The Weather Channel, Entertainment Studios and a collection of broadcast television stations including Hawaii’s ABC affiliate sued one of the world’s biggest quick-service restaurant companies for racial discrimination.
It was a whopping $10 billion lawsuit, filed in response to what was perceived as an unacceptable level of advertising commitment the QSR giant has given to his broadcast and cable properties.
On Tuesday (11/30), U.S. District Judge Fernando M. Olguin, who is based in Los Angeles, ruled on the matter. And, it’s a big win for McDonald’s.
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Kantar’s BVS solution, the ad verification business of the global data-driven analytics and brand consulting company, has been sold.
The buyer is a data platform known for connecting and powering cross-screen advertising.
Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
With the addition, Advocado says it now has “a completely integrated ad verification, attribution and campaign coordination platform, allowing advertisers, media organizations and publishers to more efficiently track and measure and amplify the impact of their ads.”
It’s a notable move for Advocado, which recently purchased a portfolio of 47 patents that includes the advanced watermarking technology from VEIL. Kantar licenses this for its BVS ad verification business.
Advocado and Kantar plan to work together to explore new offerings based on the data
and analytical capabilities both bring to the table.
As such, Advocado will be integrating Kantar’s BVS employees onto its team.
“We have been innovating in the ad tech space since 2017 and this consolidation gives us the scale and ability to challenge ‘big tech,’ which has been unrightfully claiming ownership over advertiser and consumer data,” said Brian Handrigan, Advocado’s co-founder and CEO. “By combining our next-gen attribution algorithm with the BVS ad detection data, first-party web tracking tag and other sources, our customers will benefit from an accurate, independent assessment of performance across broadcast TV, radio and digital platforms like Connected TV and streaming audio.”
With the arrangement, Advocado says it is now empowered to verify the quality of broadcast ad detection data directly to the source in real-time for use in cross-media attribution, instant campaign coordination, and other use cases.
The consolidation, says Advocado, allows it to expand its broadcast TV and radio monitoring network footprint and to integrate Connected TV/OTT and audio ad verification. This, it says, allows advertisers “to get unified video and audio ad verification and integrated universal attribution from a trusted source without giving their valuable customer journey data away to big tech.”
BVS VP Rich Radzik, who will be joining the Advocado team as part of the acquisition, added, “I have never been more excited about the future of BVS and the synergistic opportunities with Advocado. With Advocado’s digital and technical expertise we will be able to launch new innovations that will further drive growth for our client partners.”
If there’s one early hallmark of the FCC under acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, it is the Media Bureau’s seemingly aggressive approach to enforcing the Commission’s rules on the timely filing of a broadcast station’s TV issues/programs lists.
Over 2021, forfeiture notices in the thousands of dollars have been issued right and left by the Bureau. Now, two have been issued to a Mississippi licensee who may have to fork over a total of $38,000 in fines.
The stations involved aren’t even full-power facilities.
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David Andrews is one of four shareholders in Hometown Communications LLC, the licensee of 1,000-watt Class C WIRY-AM, or “wiry,” in Plattsburgh, N.Y.
He’s also the station’s General Manager and News Director, and on the latest InFOCUS Podcast, presented by dot.FM, Andrews shares with the world what it’s like to crank out tunes like “In the Year 2525” with a live, local host and community-focused advertising on a chilly autumn morning in late 2021.
Andrews also shares how the pandemic has proven to be a challenge as a new owner, as the Canadian dollar — until March 2020 — was a key retail driver in Clinton County, N.Y., just 20 minutes to the south of the New York/Québec border.
Near the town of Oak Ridge, Tenn., is an AM radio station with a FM translator that until now has been licensed to Blount Broadcasting Corp.
That entity has just agreed to a sale of the facilities.
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NEW YORK — The shareholders of Meredith Corporation are one step closer to seeing the company’s stock, traded on the New York Stock Exchange, disappear forever.
That’s because they’ve approved the Des Moines-based multimedia company’s $2.825 billion acquisition by Gray Television.
The required shareholder approval came Tuesday morning a special shareholder meeting. Now, Meredith on Wednesday will likely move ahead with filing a Form 8-K with the SEC disclosing the full voting results of the special meeting.
Immediately prior to the Gray acquisition close, Meredith will spin its digital, magazine, MNI, PEOPLE TV, and corporate operations out to its shareholders as a new company, Meredith Holdings Corp. This is the entity that the Barry Diller-led IAC-owned Dotdash has agreed to acquire for $2.7 billion.
Gray will retain all of the local television holdings, and the transactions are now on track to close as expected by the close of business Wednesday (12/1).
As of 12:45pm Eastern, MDP was trading at $59.10, up 6 cents from Monday; Meredith shares are at their highest level since April 2019.
Gray Television, like other companies in the broadcast media sector, is lower on COVID-19 Omicron variant fears. GTN was trading at $20.45, off 3%, and is now back to where shares were in late April 2021.
When it comes to the top leadership at Townsquare Media, drumming up interest from institutional investors has been seen since the days of Steven Price and Dhruv Prasad, who each held the role of CEO prior to Bill Wilson.
Next week, Wilson will be presenting alongside Townsquare’s CFO at another key investor affair.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. — An Executive VP for Newsgathering at CBS News has been selected, and it is a woman who will have editorial oversight for network newsgathering worldwide, including all domestic and international bureaus.
Taking the role is the the current EVP and CBS News Washington bureau chief, in the post since July 2020.
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SAVANNAH, GA. — For television viewers in Georgia’s Coastal Empire, local news choices have become more competitive than ever. While Gray Television’s WTOC-11 remains the leader and most top-of-mind local TV station in this region, Hearst-owned WJCL-22 has developed an incubator for its other local news organizations across the nation. Sinclair Broadcast Group’s FOX affiliate, WTGS-28, has also gained a sizable audience.
Then there is the local NBC affiliate, owned by Nexstar Media Group thanks to its merger in 2016 with Media General. It was a property that Raycom Media, at its founding, declined to own, choosing instead WTOC.
Today, that Nexstar station, WSAV-3, is on a growth spurt, making Savannah-Beaufort-Hilton Head a thriving market for broadcast TV. Now, WSAV has a new leader.
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