Powell Broadcasting is ceasing operations in Panama City, Fla., after enduring "catastrophic damage" to its facilities in the wake of Hurricane Michael. Powell, which owns WASJ and WPFM, said rebuilding was uneconomic.
Pro Music Rights is reaching out to radio stations in hopes of securing licensing deals with songs from its catalog, mostly in the hip-hop and R&B genres. PMR is the newest performance rights organization, joining companies such as BMI and Ascap, and says it has 7.4% of the US music market.
The CBS boardroom shake-up continues after Leslie Moonves resigned last month following sexual-harassment allegations. Bruce Gordon and William Cohen have followed suit, and their departures "could increase the potential that independent board members revisit a possible recombination with Viacom," Guggenheim Securities analyst Michael Morris says.
NAB Show in June 2019 will present its inaugural TVXchange event, a one-one-one networking opportunity for TV and video professionals with pre-qualified tech companies. "Each meeting is custom built and mutually beneficial, delivering significant ROI for participants," said Chris Brown, NAB executive vice president of business operations.
The Justice Department is continuing to oppose the AT&T-Time Warner merger, calling AT&T's defense "little more than a revisionist 58-page summary of the district court's opinion" in a federal court filing. The DOJ is asking the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to reverse a lower-court approval of the merger on antitrust grounds.
Kevin Hart has reportedly signed on with Nickelodeon to produce scripted, live-action children's shows through his HartBeat Productions company. Hart is a network favorite who has won several Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards.
The Federal Communications Commission continues to assess the damage across Florida, Georgia and Alabama from Hurricane Michael and is reporting 27 FMs, three FM translators and four AMs off the air, as well as 18.8% of wireless towers offline. Those numbers may continue to climb, since the only FCC data collected is from stations able to report their status to Washington, which leaves many Florida stations out of the equation.
National Association of Broadcasters President and CEO Gordon Smith appreciates the bipartisan process that resulted in the Music Modernization Act. He also stands behind the value broadcasters continue to provide, especially during recent extreme weather, where "radio was part of the warning, the reporting and the rescue," he said.
Emmis CEO Jeff Smulyan could not garner enough industry partners or money to take NextRadio to the next level, so on Thursday, he announced that the project would be winding down. "Everybody unanimously said, 'We have to have this.' But when it came time for pitching in and helping fund it, we couldn't get enough support," Smulyan said.
A recent Advertising Analytics report notes that in the past month, political TV ads that depict House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and/or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a negative light have aired over 34,000 times. Republican campaigns and affiliated groups have spent $28.4 million on the ads in the past month and will continue to air them because they're deemed effective, Natasha Korecki writes.