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Media General and privately held New Young Broadcasting announced a definitive agreement to combine the two companies in an all-stock merger transaction.
The new company will retain the Media General name and will remain headquartered in Richmond, VA. Media General owns 18 network-affiliated stations, and Young owns or operates 12 network affiliates. The combination will create a company with 30 stations operating in 27 markets, reaching 16.5 million, or 14%, of U.S. TV households. On a pro forma basis, 2012 revenues were $605 million, including approximately $115 million of political revenues. The balance of network affiliations will include CBS (11), NBC (9), ABC (7) Fox (1), CW (1) and MyNetworkTV (MNT) (1). Sixteen of the 30 stations are located in the Top 75 DMAs. Media General says the new company “will be more geographically diverse and will have a presence in more markets that generate strong political revenues. Its increased size will enhance its ability to participate in retransmission revenue growth, share growth of national and digital advertising, and syndicated programming purchasing.”
Media General, Young Broadcasting to Merge Media General, Young Broadcasting Merge, New Co. Owns 30 TV Stations (MediaPost)
While broadcasters’ retransmission fees are expected to rise, over-the-air TV will likely never get the size of fees paid to ESPN, which, at the top of the heap, gets more than five times what broadcasters do.
“The audience for ESPN is probably the most passionate out there, and if all of a sudden a carrier drops ESPN, that audience will leave,” Robert Folliard, a Dow Lohnes associate who works with affiliates, said. “With broadcast, people will leave but you don’t have that passion.” Currently, broadcasters get about $1 per month for each subscriber from the television service providers that carry their stations. ESPN gets $5.54, according to SNL Kagan Associate Director Robin Flynn. Broadcasters may, however, be moving toward parity with other cable channels, which individually earn more in retransmission fees than broadcasters do but not as much as ESPN, they say.
Station retransmission Fees Up, But ESPN Still King
AT&T has arrived at the same comfortable point in its LTE rollout that Verizon Wireless hit about this time last year. It’s now built out the 4G network in 261 markets, blanketing 200 million people. That means all of the major and mid-sized cities are covered, and Ma Bell can start focusing on the small cities and towns in between.
AT&T announced a list of 22 new markets receiving the LTE upgrade, and last week it took its new network live in another 11. AT&T’s goal is to reach 250 million people covered by the end of the year, which will mean covering a lot of smaller cities and towns. It’s planning 77 new market launches this summer alone. To put it in perspective, Verizon has launched LTE in 491 markets, yet it’s footprint encompasses 287 million people. From here on out, we’re going to see AT&T add hundreds of more names to its coverage list, but each new name will only add incremental gains to its total population covered.
With the big cities covered, AT&T starts filling in its LTE gaps
The cost divide between “smart” and dumb devices will shrink in the next few years, with it costing about $5 to add connectivity to things. And at that point there’s no reason why you might not have a connected microwave or smoke detector. But not all of this connectivity will serve the consumer. In the case of appliances they might be used by the manufactures for software updates, diagnostics and perhaps to sell you services. So a connected fridge might not buy your groceries but it would offer to ship a replacement water filter to your door, when it sensed yours was past its prime.
Say goodbye to the connected device price gap. Adding connectivity will soon cost $5
Hulu apparently has yet another suitor: AT&T is in discussions with the Chernin Group about a joint bid on the online TV portal — they figure their combined financial might can meet Hulu’s high asking price. Why would AT&T, a mobile and wireline phone company, be interested in an online video portal? Through its U-Verse service, AT&T is a video-programming provider selling the equivalent of cable TV to 4.8 million households. It could be interested in Hulu for the same reasons as Time Warner Cable and DirecTV are, to bulk up their TV everywhere services. But AT&T’s interest in Hulu might stem from much more unexpected place: its mobile division. Video is proving to a very tricky proposition for mobile operators. On the one hand, they’ve built these big fat wireless pipes to carry video, but on the other, they’re still charging per-megabyte rates that makes large-scale video usage prohibitive. Video usage is booming on mobile devices, but for the large part it occurs at home on Wi-Fi not on 3G and 4G networks.
Why AT&T might be interested in Hulu: A big mobile data payday
There are now more ways than ever to get money for the valuable video sports teams create.
Increasingly, the sports leagues are finding new platforms not only for live games, but for their secondary content as well. The leagues, for instance, are granting licensing rights to companies like Sporting News and NDN to distribute highlights and post-game interviews to the websites of news sites like the New York Times and USA Today. As it becomes easier and cheaper to make web video, such clips appear set to become once more valuable tranche of media revenue for the leagues (there’s also radio, video games and so on). The deals are valuable to the licensors because they can sell video ads against the highlights, splitting the revenue with the publishers.
As sports TV costs soar, leagues find new ways to slice up video dollars
Sen Lindsey Graham (R-SC) needs to know what a "journalist" is.
This isn't meant to be mocking; he really needs to know that. He needs to know who is a member of the media and what constitutes reporting if the federal government is to give those people protection under the law. Since the last time Congress considered the issue, in 2009, the question has become only more complex. At issue is the renewed call for a federal media shield law. Forty-nine states have legal protections allowing the media to protect sources of information from requests for exposure by private citizens and the government. The Feds don't. Instead, the Department of Justice has fairly vague guidelines about what is and isn't appropriate in investigating how a media outlet got a leak. That vagueness has recently given the Administration trouble. Sen Graham, who is leading the Republican effort to codify rules, explained the conundrum to the Columbia Free Times. His question centers around the question of electronic media.
The Value of a New Media Shield Law Depends on Your Definition of 'Media'
President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate Howard A. Husock to be a member of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Husock is Vice President for Policy Research at the Manhattan Institute, which he joined in 2006. He also directs the Institute’s Social Entrepreneurship and Philanthropy Initiative. From 1987 to 2006, Mr. Husock served as Director of Case Studies in Public Policy and Management at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he was also a research fellow at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations from 2005 to 2006. In 1989, he was a Fellow in the Media Studies Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and from 1981 to 1982, he was a Mid-Career Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. From 1979 to 1986, he worked as a producer, director, and reporter at WGBH Boston, where he received three Emmy Awards and the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. Since 1998, he has been a Contributing Editor to City Journal. Mr. Husock received a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University.
Husock Tapped for CPB Board
When the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission pitched a plan to allow more media mergers earlier this year, he received support from a curious source: the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, once an ardent critic of industry consolidation.
Julius Genachowski wanted backing for a proposed loosening of a rule that bars the same company from owning a newspaper and a radio or television broadcast station in a top media market. MMTC and its executive director, David Honig, have historically opposed relaxing ownership restrictions, saying they protect minority interests. Yet last week, the group released a key study arguing the opposite position. So why the change of heart? Critics say MMTC’s position may have something to do with its extensive industry funding. This includes more than $440,000 in luncheon sponsorships since 2010 from broadcast giants who favor the rule change. In an 18-page response to questions for this article, Honig says the support does not influence the group’s positions. “The most valuable asset that a nonprofit organization has is its integrity, and to imply that donations and fees influence our positions on issues is to suggest that we lack integrity, something we do not take lightly,” he wrote. Once a shoestring operation dependent almost solely on the volunteer efforts of Honig, MMTC has evolved in recent years into a potent organization that exercises much influence on the FCC through its ability to shape the positions of large civil rights organizations on relatively obscure FCC issues.
After years of defending the FCC’s media ownership rules, Honig, wrote in a blog post in December that the cross-ownership ban should be relaxed, citing concern in minority communities about the decline of newspapers. What he didn't disclose was the hundreds of thousands of dollars his group had received from CBS Corp., radio giant Clear Channel Communications Inc., Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and the National Association of Broadcasters. All four have previously gone to court in an effort to end the ban. Spokesmen for the NAB and CBS say their organization’s donations weren’t intended to change MMTC’s positions on cross-ownership or other matters. MMTC took in just under $2 million in 2011. Of that, $1.7 million was derived from sponsorships, donations and fees from companies, lobbyists, lawyers and religious broadcasters with interests before the FCC, according to an IRS filing.
Civil rights group's FCC positions reflect industry funding, critics say
For reasons as yet unclear, a group of Republican state legislators in control of the Wisconsin Joint Finance Committee voted to kick the nationally respected, award-winning, nonpartisan Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, better known online as “Wisconsin Watch,” off the University of Wisconsin premises.
The Wisconsin Center has never received state money, and it has had a no-cash “facilities use agreement” in which it occupies two small university offices in exchange for providing invaluable student internships, classroom collaborations, guest lectures by veteran Center journalists, etc. It works closely with the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and also Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Public Television. Top officials at the University of Wisconsin today came out forcefully against the nocturnal mischief of the reckless Republicans.
Wisconsin legislators vote to kick investigative journalism out