Industry News

In May 2019, Deb McDermott gained the industry’s attention for the acquisition of television stations in Providence, R.I., and Lincoln, Neb., by the company she holds the title of CEO for, Standard Media Group. Six months later, Standard Media added nine properties from Waypoint Media in a deal valued at $59.2 million.

The deals cemented Standard Media’s role as a acquisitor, with McDermott, who is perhaps best-known in the media world for her association with ABC affiliate WKRN-2 in Nashville, partnering with Soo Kim on the company’s build-out.

Now, as 2021 begins, McDermott is shedding her ownership interest in the two stations acquired in May ’19.

A 27-page document uploaded to the FCC’s LMS proposes the transfer of control of 100% of the membership interests of Standard Media Group LLC from McDermott Communications to Paducah Television Operations LLC.

Translation: McDermott’s equity interest is being transferred to Soo.

To illustrate the change, an organizational chart was submitted to the Commission. Pre-transfer, McDermott controls Standard Media Group, and under that WLNE-6 in Providence, R.I., and KLKN-8 in Lincoln, Neb.

The McDermott-led group purchased the stations from Citadel Communications LLC for $83 million.

Post-transfer, Standard Media would be a unit of Paducah Television Operations, housed under Soo-controlled CNM Television Holdings, a division of his Community News Media LLC.

Soo Kim has generated much attention over the last year. As a dissident shareholder of TEGNA, he attempted (and ultimately failed) to win a seat on the board and gain control of the broadcast TV company. He’s also in partnership with Emmis Communications founder and CEO Jeff Smulyan, as Managing Member of the entity holding attributable interest in Mediaco — now the licensee of WBLS-FM & WQHT-FM in New York.

Is there a financial obligation tied to this transfer request, which awaits FCC approval?
Yes. Sort of.

A $55,803,225.17 Amended and Restated Floating Rate Subordinated Convertible Note, dated Dec. 10, 2020, appears to be integral to the transaction. The note holder is Soo’s Paducah, and it is exercising a conversion option.

What does this mean? It’s complex but it appears McDermott is acquiescing her ownership interest in the stations in return for the multi-million dollar loan, which has a maturity date of March 5, 2023.

Why? A plausible explanation is that Soo is assisting McDermott on closing the Citadel transaction consummated nearly 1 1/2 years ago, as some $27,196,774.83 may have been paid thus far in a deal struck before anyone knew the COVID-19 pandemic would strip local TV of ad dollars across much of 2020.

And, with Nebraska and Rhode Island far from political hot spots, the election-year windfall could have been peanuts compared to what was seen in Florida, Georgia or Arizona.

Serving as legal counsel on this transaction is Scott Flick of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. He was not immediately available for comment when reached by RBR+TVBR.

A broadcasting veteran of more than 50 years is calling it quits, and heading into retirement. But, who in the midst of a pandemic would want to invest in an AM/FM combo serving a rural area of Virginia between Richmond and Lynchburg?

Look no further than the No. 2 licensee by number of radio stations in the U.S.

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What pandemic slowdown?

After dipping to nearly $56 per share on March 18, as concerns surrounding the domestic spread of the COVID-19 virus reached fevered heights, Nexstar Media Group stock started its slow climb back to where it was in early Q1 2020.

While NXST is beginning 2021 roughly $20 per share below where it was on February 12, 2020, investors should hardly be upset. Tuesday afternoon trading saw shares trading in the mid-$108 range.

Now, with news that noted journalist Ashleigh Banfield is joining WGN America to helm a 10pm ET hour-long news and newsmakers show, following News Night, investors should have plenty to cheer about come Tuesday, Feb. 23.

That’s when Nexstar will release its Q4 and full-year 2020 results. The numbers will be distributed prior to the Opening Bell on Wall Street, and a 9am conference call will see C-Suite executives discuss the results.

With a new NBC affiliation agreement just inked and ownership of stations such as WSAV-3 in Savannah, Ga., where political dollars for two U.S. Senate runoff races to be decided today were high, Nexstar seemingly has nothing but positives to share.

That’s what Zacks Equity Research thinks. “Investors might want to bet on Nexstar, as earnings estimates for this company have been showing solid improvement lately,” it said in early December. “The stock has already gained solid short-term price momentum, and this trend might continue with its still improving earnings outlook.”

For Q4, the company is expected to earn $6.44 per share, which is a change of +172.88% from the year-ago reported number.

For the full year of 2020, the company is expected to earn $16.14 per share, representing a year-over-year change of +236.25%.

What’s Zacks’ bottom line? “Nexstar shares have added 28% over the past four weeks,” it said one month ago, when shares were $110.80. “[This suggests] that investors are betting on its impressive estimate revisions.”

In the San Francisco Bay Area, South Asians seeking programming devoted to Indian, Pakistani and Sri Lankan culture, news and music have had access to Ravi Kapur‘s Diya TV on the DT2 signal of KTSF-26, the multicultural broadcast station led by Jack Schwartz and owned by Lincoln Howell that just inked a fresh measurement deal with Nielsen.

Soon, local viewers will now have another way — and, perhaps, easier way — to view Diya TV.

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The head of enforcement for the Federal Communications Commission says efforts to implement the new PIRATE Act against illegal radio stations have been hampered by the pandemic as well as a lack of funding from Congress.

Rosemary C. Harold, the chief of the FCC Enforcement Bureau, submitted the commission’s first annual report to Congress about its pirate radio work, as required in the act that became law a year ago.

That law raised the amount of fines the FCC can issue, up to $100,000 per day and $2 million total, and it expanded the definition of who can be fined to include people who “willfully and knowingly” help pirate radio operations.

The commission did report some enforcement activity for the year, as listed below. But Harold identified two issues that have limited its work.

First, the FCC in March implemented a mandatory telework policy. That complicated the work of pirate enforcement, which requires agents “to engage in significant, in-person activities to gather evidence, including witness statements and technical measurements of a pirate station’s operations.”

Second, the commission has received no funding to implement the PIRATE Act, she wrote.

“The Congressional Budget Office and the commission both estimated that it would cost $11 million for the commission to implement the Act,” she said.

“And yet, the PIRATE Act itself contained no appropriation or other funding source to cover its implementation costs. And because the commission’s FY 2021 budget ceiling level was established by the Office of Management and Budget on December 3, 2019, before Congress adopted the PIRATE Act, the commission did not have an opportunity to incorporate costs related to the implementation of the PIRATE Act during the president’s fiscal year (FY) 2021 budget process.”

The FCC also is supposed to conduct “sweeps” at least once a year in five markets that have the most pirate radio activity. It began studying this but the lack of funding and the pandemic-related restrictions prevented any sweeps.

Harold said the bureau’s ability to fully conduct the sweeps “will remain subject to obtaining new funding through the appropriations process” as well as the end of the pandemic.

And the FCC was supposed to develop a public database by April 2020 that listed all licensed AM and FM stations, as well as all entities that have received a notice of unlicensed operation, notice of apparent liability or forfeiture order.

But that too didn’t happen because of lack of appropriated funds.

Nevertheless, the Enforcement Bureau was not idle in 2020.

Harold cited new efforts to inform property owners and property managers of apparent pirate broadcasts from their properties and to describe the potential consequences to the property owner or manager. The first notices were issued in New York last month, as we’ve reported.

“Although these ongoing proceedings are in their early stages, initial discussions with the property owners have been promising,” Harold told Congress. The FCC is also doing more general outreach to educate commercial and residential property owners and managers.

The law also encourages the commission to skip the usual step of issuing a notice of unauthorized operation and proceed instead directly to a notice of apparent liability for forfeiture. The Enforcement Bureau implemented that in December.

And on the enforcement side, Harold listed several actions including the settlement of two long-running investigations. Acerome Jean Charles and Gerlens Cesar separately agreed to monetary settlements including “significant suspended” penalties that would be triggered if they resumed operations.

The post Lack of Funding Hampers PIRATE Enforcement appeared first on Radio World.

Mediacom cable TV service subscribers in 12 DMAs across the U.S. presently lack access to at least one of their home market’s Big Four affiliates.

Why? Of course it’s another retransmission consent impasse, which has led Mediacom — by law — to drop such stations as WWL-4 in New Orleans, KARE-11 in Minneapolis and KPNX-12 in Phoenix from its respective market lineups.

The MVPD puts the blame on TEGNA, the stations’ owner. TEGNA feels otherwise.

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“You may have noticed that certain TV channels are currently unavailable to you. Please know these channels have been blocked by their owner, TEGNA Inc.”

That’s how Mediacom is explaining the loss of all TEGNA-owned stations from its channel lineups in DMAs as disparate as Norfolk, Tucson, St. Louis and Des Moines.

In its own interpretation of events, Mediacom assured its customers that the decision to “blackout” the channels “was not made by Mediacom.”

It said, “Our contract with TEGNA expired on December 31, 2020, at 5pm Eastern. At that time, we were ordered by TEGNA to stop carrying their stations, despite the fact that we were offering to pay a significant increase over our previous contract. Under federal law, we can’t carry a station unless the owner grants us permission to do so.”

The last sentence is undisputed as fact. The rest of Mediacom’s statement was addressed by TEGNA in a statement appearing on the websites for its impacted stations, such as WQAD-8, the ABC affiliate serving the Quad Cities of Illinois and Indiana.

The TEGNA station explained, “WQAD is currently not available on Mediacom. That means Mediacom is taking away your access to your favorite ABC programming.”

With agreements in place with Dish, DirecTV and Comcast in the DMA that includes Bettendorf, Moline and Davenport, TEGNA said, “Unfortunately, Mediacom refused to reach a fair, market-based agreement with us, which is why our station is not currently available on Mediacom.”

Who is correct is likely of little consequence to the “hard working residents of rural Alabama, Arizona, California, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, and Virginia” — customers Mediacom said would need to absorb the costs of any price interest it cannot agree to in its quest to reach a retrans deal with TEGNA.

Mediacom, the nation’s fifth-largest MVPD, does not explain why the cost would need to be passed on to customers. Mediacom is privately owned by empresario Rocco Commisso, owner of Italian pro soccer team ACF Fiorentina and the MLS’s reborn New York Cosmos.

Mediacom’s 2019 operating income was $808 million.

According to the company’s annual fiscal report, Mediacom’s revenues were $2.031 billion for the year ended December 31, 2019.

Will a new deal come soon?

Maybe not.

“Mediacom is continuing to work hard to achieve a viable and affordable solution; however, the decision to pull the stations from your channel lineup rests entirely with TEGNA,” it says in an online microsite for Mediacom customers.

Will WQAD ever be back on the Mediacom system?

“We hope so,” TEGNA says. “It is really up to Mediacom to decide. We are committed to reaching a fair deal. If Mediacom is willing to make the same commitment, then we are confident that we can get an agreement that restores our station to the Mediacom lineup.”

Beasley Media Group is officially observing its 60th anniversary.

In this new RBR+TVBR InFOCUS Podcast, presented by DOT.FM, CEO Caroline Beasley shares a little about the company’s legacy — and what will eventually culminate in a special anniversary day in December.

Why did company founder George Beasley invest in an AM radio station in Benson, N.C., and why in December 1961 did he desire to own a radio station?

What is Beasley’s place in history with the growth of FM radio, and HD Radio?

Caroline Beasley shares the answers and more!

Listen to “The InFOCUS Podcast: Caroline Beasley” on Spreaker.

The EBU has a new executive board, elected at its General Assembly in December.

The European Broadcasting Union is an alliance of public service media organizations. Its board will serve for a two-year period starting this month.

“Nine board members will join the EBU’s new President Delphine Ernotte Cunci (France Télévisions) and Vice-President Petr Dvořák (Czech TV) to help lead the EBU over the next two years,” it announced.

Thomas Bellut, Monika Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė and Fran Unsworth join the board for the first time. Alexander Wrabetz rejoins after a four-year absence.

Bellut has been director general of ZDF since 2012. Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė was appointed director general of Lithuanian National Radio and Television in 2018. Unsworth runs the BBC’s news and current affairs programming and is a member of the BBC board as well.

Wrabetz has served as director general of ORF since 2007 and was an EBU board member from 2011–2016.

Cilla Benkö has been appointed for her fifth term as an EBU Board Member while Marcello Foa, Giacomo Ghisani, Sebastian Sergei Parker and Gonçalo Reis will be serving for a second term.

Ernotte Cunci noted the “balance of the geographical, economical and cultural diversity of the EBU members” in the composition of the board and that it includes three women for the first time.

Tony Hall of the BBC has served as president of the EBU for the past two years.

Executive Board Line-Up

President: Delphine Ernotte Cunci, CEO, France Télévisions (France)
Vice-President: Petr Dvořák, Director General, Czech TV (Czech Republic)

Thomas Bellut, Director General, ZDF (Germany)
Cilla Benkö, Director General, SR (Sweden)
Marcello Foa, President, Rai (Italy)
Monika Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė, Director General, LRT (Lithuania)
Giacomo Ghisani, Acting Director General, RV (Vatican State)
Sebastian Sergei Parker, Deputy Director General, Channel One (Russia)
Gonçalo Reis, President and CEO, RTP (Portugal)
Fran Unsworth, Director of News and Current Affairs, BBC (UK)
Alexander Wrabetz, Director General, ORF (Austria)

The post EBU Welcomes New Board appeared first on Radio World.

A GoFundMe page has been created to assist the family of Andy Luberda, who died in late December from complications of COVID-19.

Luberda, 51, was the longtime operations manager of Skyview Networks, which announced his death. The support page is https://www.gofundme.com/f/in-loving-memory-of-andy-luberda.

Luberda joined the satellite distribution and syndication company in 2012 as a board op in its Broadcast Operations department, according to the company.

“In this role, he was responsible for the quality and execution of professional sports play-by-play broadcasts, showing leadership, reliability and passion,” it stated. “His love of sports combined with his approachable and warm personality made him a valued leader and friend to his colleagues.”

Skyview’s Director, Communication & Special Projects Renee Smith said Luberda took on additional projects that included managing ABC News Radio overnight broadcasts.

“In 2015, Andy was promoted to operations manager, where he focused on managing one of the company’s largest clients, TuneIn. In this role, he monitored and managed over 70 collegiate football and basketball live audio streams and 24/7 news and weather content.”

Luberda’s son Kade also joined the company in 2016 as a board operator.

Colleague and manager Aaron Mellis remembered Andy Luberda’s “warm heart and genuine care for his colleagues.”

According to his obituary Luberda was a graduate of Arizona State University. “His passion was being an avid sports writer for a multitude of high schools in Arizona,” the obituary states. “It brought him great joy when an athlete was recognized and signed by a college; but his greatest passion was spending time with his grandkids and just being their Grandy.”

The benefit page is to raise funds for medical and memorial costs and to provide financial support for his son.

The post Andy Luberda Dies, Was Skyview Ops Manager appeared first on Radio World.

Share this item with the person who climbs your tower: Safety equipment maker MSA has issued a user safety notice about one of its products.

“MSA has received field reports of a limited number of Latchways Standard Self-Retracting Lifelines (SRL) in which some internal bolts came loose,” the company wrote.

It said it has not received reports of injuries associated with the condition, but it advises customers to remove relevant ones from service and return them to the company.

It published information so users can determine if their particular units are affected.

“Over time, the loose bolts will be identifiable by the user as extraction of the cable from the SRL housing will no longer be possible. However, MSA’s investigation has determined that this may be preceded by a window of time in which a fall may not be arrested.”

The company will rework the product at no cost.

The notice was issued by Nathan Andrulonis, the company’s director of product safety.

The alert was forwarded by NATE, the Communications Infrastructure Contractors Association, as an urgent industry safety alert.

Read the notice.

The post MSA Recalls Some of Its Lifelines appeared first on Radio World.