The sides announced the deal in a joint statement Friday, roughly a month after they reached an agreement in principle on the sale for a record $6.05 billion.

The deal is the highest price paid for a North American professional sports franchise. It is still pending approval of three-quarters of owners and other customary closing conditions.

Harris’ group includes Washington-area billionaire Mitchell Rales and basketball Hall of Famer Magic Johnson. Snyder has owned the team since 1999.

The post Washington Commanders, Harris Group Agree On Sale appeared first on TV News Check.

The S&P 500 dipped 6.54 points, or 0.2%, to 4,124.08 to cap a sixth straight week where it moved by less than 1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 8.89, or less than 0.1%, to 33,300.62, while the Nasdaq composite lost 43.76, or 0.4%, to 12,284.74.

Despite the seemingly placid moves for the overall market, big swings have swirled underneath the surface amid worries about a possible recession, high inflation and the U.S. government inching toward what could be a catastrophic default on its debt.

It’s not just Wall Street that’s concerned. Sentiment among U.S. consumers is tumbling, according to a preliminary survey by the University of Michigan. That’s a worry because strong spending by consumers has been one of the main forces preventing a recession as the economy slows.

Joanne Hsu, director of the Surveys of Consumers, pointed to the looming June 1 deadline when the U.S. government could run out of cash to pay its bills unless Congress allows it to borrow more.

“If policymakers fail to resolve the debt ceiling crisis, these dismal views over the economy will exacerbate the dire economic consequences of default,” she said in a statement.

President Joe Biden and congressional leaders postponed a meeting set for Friday on the debt limit crisis to next week. The delay was billed as a sign of positive exchanges, and staff-level talks are expected to continue through the weekend.

One area under heavy pressure this week looking to stabilize was PacWest Bancorp’s stock. It’s been under heavy scrutiny as Wall Street hunts for the next possible U.S. bank to fail following three high-profile collapses since March.

PacWest fell 3% after flipping from a gain in the morning. A day earlier, it slid sharply after disclosing a flight of deposits from the prior week. Its stock lost 21% this past week.

Banks have been bending under the weight of much higher interest rates, which have caused some customers to pull deposits in search of higher yields while also dragging down prices for the investments that the banks hold.

Rates are so high because the Federal Reserve has been hiking them at a furious pace in order to drive down inflation. Reports this week suggested inflation is continuing to moderate from its peak last year, though it remains way too high for the comfort of households and regulators.

The hope on Wall Street is that easing inflation may convince the Fed to hold off on raising rates again at its next meeting in June. That would offer some breathing room to both the economy, which has slowed under the weight of higher rates, and to financial markets, where prices began falling long ago.

One potential wild card arrived in Friday’s report on consumer sentiment. It suggested U.S. households are girding for 3.2% inflation over the long run. That’s higher than last month’s reading of 3% and the highest level since 2011.

One worry at the Fed is that if expectations for high inflation become entrenched, it could change behaviors by shoppers and others across the economy that only worsens inflation.

Treasury yields rose in the bond market following the consumer-sentiment report. The yield on the 10-year Treasury erased an earlier dip and climbed to 3.47% from 3.39% late Thursday. It helps set rates for mortgages and other important loans.

The two-year yield, which moves more on expectations for the Fed, rose to 3.99% from 3.90%.

News Corp. rose 8.5% after it reported a milder drop in profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected.

That’s been the trend this earnings reporting season. Reports have been better than feared but still weaker than a year earlier. Companies in the S&P 500 are on track to report a second straight quarter of drops in earnings per share, something that’s called an “earnings recession.”

First Solar soared 26.5% after announcing it’s purchasing Evolar AB, a European company, to accelerate its development of high efficiency tandem devices and other technologies.

On the losing end of Wall Street was Gen Digital, which fell 5.5% despite reporting stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than expected.

Several Big Tech stocks were also weak. They and other high-growth stocks are seen as some of the hardest hit by high interest rates. Amazon fell 1.7% and was the heaviest weight on the S&P 500.

AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.

The post Dow Slips 9, Nasdaq Loses 44, S&P Dips 7 appeared first on TV News Check.

A graduate of Loyola University’s communications department, Nicole has been WWL’s nightside executive producer since January 2022. During that time, the station said, she has played an integral role in the continued transformation of WWL’s late news.

“Louisiana is my home. The food, music, and culture run through my veins. I watched WWL-TV as a child. I can think of no greater honor than to lead this newsroom,” Nicole said.

Before returning home, Nicole served as executive producer at WFAA Dallas, where she led the dayside producing and assignment desk teams — overseeing the daily editorial process, as well as working with the research and marketing teams to implement daily and long-term strategies for newscasts.

“Nicole is a leader who brings a passion for the people of Southeast Louisiana,” said WWL President/General Manager Tod Smith. “Her ties to the local area run deep. That, combined with her extensive cross-platform and multi-market experience makes her the perfect choice to lead our newsroom into the future.”

The post WWL Ups Nicole Waivers To News Director appeared first on TV News Check.

Musk announced Friday that he’s hiring Linda Yaccarino to be the new CEO of San Francisco-based Twitter, which is now called X Corp. He said Yaccarino’s role will be focused mainly on running the company’s business operations, leaving him to focus on product design and new technology.

Here’s what to know about Yaccarino.

Veteran Ad Exec

Yaccarino, 60, has worked as an advertising executive for decades. She came to NBCUniversal in 2011, just as Comcast was completing its merger with NBC, and oversaw integrating the companies’ ad sales platforms. There, her most recent title was chairman, advertising and client partnerships. She oversaw all market strategy and advertising revenue, which totaled nearly $10 billion, for NBCUniversal’s entire portfolio of broadcast, cable and digital assets.

Before that, she held a variety of roles at Turner Broadcasting System Inc. from 1996 to 2011, including executive vice president and chief operating officer. That was after she held management positions at several media sales outlets.

“She’s a marketer’s leader,” said Mark DiMassimo, founder and creative chief of ad agency DiGo.

“She speaks CMO and she understands what marketers need,” he added, referring to the role of chief marketing officer.

Pushing Boundaries

Yaccarino has pushed the ad industry for change on several fronts, including advocating for relying less heavily on Nielsen ratings for measurement, and introducing a digital platform called One Platform that makes it easier to buy ads across a variety of different media in an effort to better compete for ads against social media companies and traditional media companies.

“It’s worth noting that they built out a big team that’s made a lot of innovative products and supported the growth that they’ve experienced,” said Brian Wieser of strategic advisory firm Madison and Wall. “They’ve been pushing the industry on a lot of fronts, you know, trying to make it better.”

“I think that first and foremost, she’ll bring to Twitter an understanding of what advertisers need to see to get back on the platform from the brand safety perspective,” said Dave Campanelli, chief investment officer of media buying firm Horizon Media. “She knows better than anyone what it’s going to take and I think for advertisers and buyers, the question really is, is she going to have free rein to do all that or is it going to be just the same old, same old (with Musk).”

Biographical Details

Yaccarino serves as chairman of the World Economic Forum’s Taskforce on the Future of Work. A 1985 graduate of Pennsylvania State University, she lives in Sea Cliff, New York, with her husband, Claude Madrazo. They have two children, Christian and Matthew.

The post What To Know About Twitter’s New CEO Linda Yaccarino appeared first on TV News Check.

“Cassady is the ideal successor to build upon the very solid foundation of our company,” said Laura Williamson, KSBW president-general manager. “She is an Emmy Award-winning executive with nearly 20 years of broadcast news experience. Her exceptional work within KSBW, her local knowledge and the expertise she has exhibited throughout her career position her well for this leadership position.”

Velasco began her television journalism career as the 5 p.m. news producer at KSBW in 1999. After leaving to work as the executive administrative assistant for former KSBW anchor Dina Ruiz, she returned to KSBW in 2008 as the 6 p.m. news producer, a position she held for nine years. During that time, she earned an Emmy for breaking news coverage of the Soberanes Wildfire in Big Sur. In 2017 Velasco was promoted to managing editor and in 2021 to assistant news director.

“I have been very fortunate to have grown my career at KSBW and within Hearst Television,” Velasco said. “I look forward to continuing to work with our exceptional news team and building on KSBW’s great legacy of service to our Central Coast.”

Velasco will make the transition to news director in June.

The post Cassady Velasco Promoted To News Director At KSBW appeared first on TV News Check.

“I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter!” Musk wrote in a Friday tweet. He added that Yaccarino “will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology.”

Yaccarino has worked at NBCUniversal for nearly 12 years — with her team generating more than $100 billion in ad sales since 2011, her company bio notes. According to LinkedIn, Yaccarino previously served as NBC’s chair for advertising and client partnerships and as president of cable entertainment and digital advertising sales. Prior to her time with NBC, Yaccarino worked at global entertainment company Turner for almost two decades.

Yaccarino interviewed Musk on a Miami stage last month in front of hundreds of advertisers.

Luring advertisers is critical for Musk and Twitter after many fled in the early months after his takeover of the social media platform, fearing harm to their brands in the ensuing chaos. Musk said in late April that advertisers had returned, but provided no details.

Yaccarino could help restore advertisers’ faith in Twitter, ad agency DiGo founder and creative chief Mark DiMassimo said. He noted that Yaccarino successfully integrated and digitized ad sales at Comcast and NBC — and that her track record of cross-selling ads across different platforms could appeal to Musk as he tries to transform Twitter from a social media company to a bigger media platform.

“If anyone can translate the Musk vision into advantages for marketers she’ll be able to do it,” DiMassimo said. “Even though there’s skepticism and all marketers live in the ‘show me’ state right now with regard to Twitter, if in fact she does go to Twitter this is a powerfully reassuring move.”

Musk has long insisted he is not the company’s permanent CEO. The Tesla billionaire said in a tweet Thursday that his role will transition to being Twitter’s executive chairman and chief technology officer.

In mid-November, just a few weeks after buying the social media platform for $44 billion, he told a Delaware court that he does not want to be the CEO of any company.

More than a month later, he tweeted in December: “I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job.” The pledge came after millions of Twitter users asked him to step down in a Twitter poll the billionaire himself created and promised to abide by.

In February, he told a conference he anticipated finding a CEO for San Francisco-based Twitter “probably toward the end of this year.”

Analysts who follow Twitter’s business welcomed the news even without knowing who the replacement will be. Twitter’s advertising business has taken a hit under Musk’s mercurial rule, though the billionaire told BBC last month that the company is now “roughly” breaking even.

“A new CEO is the only way forward for Twitter,” said Insider Intelligence analyst Jasmine Enberg.

“The single biggest problem with Twitter’s ad business was Elon Musk. As he steps back, Twitter can begin to unravel Musk’s personal brand from the company’s corporate image and attempt to regain trust among advertisers,” Enberg said. “The success of those efforts will depend on who takes over, but it’s difficult to imagine that the new CEO could be more controversial or damaging to Twitter’s ad business than Musk has been.”

Mike Proulx, research director at Forrester Research, added that advertising is not the only challenge that Twitter’s new CEO will face – after all, Musk has “fundamentally altered” Twitter both as a product and a community, arguably “for the worst.”

“While he’s stepping back from the CEO title, Musk is far from likely to step back from calling the product shots,” Proulx said.

Shares of Tesla rose about 2% Thursday after Musk made the announcement. Shareholders of the electric car company have been concerned about how much of his attention is being spent on Twitter.

Last November, Musk was questioned in court about how he splits his time among Tesla and his other companies, including SpaceX and Twitter. Musk had to testify in the trial in Delaware’s Court of Chancery over a shareholder’s challenge to his potentially $55 billion compensation plan as CEO of the electric car company.

Musk said he never intended to be CEO of Tesla, and that he didn’t want to be chief executive of any other companies either, preferring to see himself as an engineer. Musk also said at the time that he expected an organizational restructuring of Twitter to be completed in the next week or so. It’s been nearly six months since he said that.

Musk’s tenure at Twitter’s helm has been chaotic, and he’s made various promises and proclamations he’s backtracked or never followed up on. He began his first day firing the company’s top executives, followed by roughly 80% of its staff. He’s upended the platform’s verification system and has scaled back content moderation and safeguards against the spread of misinformation.

Bantering with Twitter followers late last year, Musk expressed pessimism about the prospects for a new CEO, saying that person “must like pain a lot” to run a company that “has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy.”

“No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor,” Musk tweeted at the time.

AP Business Writers Wyatte Grantham-Philips and Mae Anderson contributed to this report.

The post Musk Confirms Twitter’s New CEO Is Ad Guru Linda Yaccarino appeared first on TV News Check.

Sarata has spent his career in sales and leadership for both television and radio. He served five years as vice president/market manager for Cumulus Media in Lansing, and five years as market president/chief revenue officer for the Townsquare radio group in Grand Rapids, Mich. And among other TV stops, he was general sales manager for more than four years at WXMI Grand Rapids, Mich.

“Rick is a charismatic leader with a history of developing successful client-focused partnerships and leading high-achieving sales teams,” said WILX General Manager Debbie Petersmark. This move completes a full circle in his career, as Sarata spent his early years in TV sales as an account executive at WILX. “We are excited to welcome Rick back,” said Petersmark, “And I suspect many of our local advertisers will be too.”

Sarata succeeds current WILX General Sales Manager Patrick Schooley, who has been with the station nearly 22 years. He started in 2002 as an account executive and transitioned to national sales manager for many years before becoming GSM in 2021. He was recently recruited by WILX’s parent company Gray Television to get back into national sales and has accepted the position of national sales manager for two Gray stations: KTTC Rochester, Minn. and WSAW Wausau, Wis. His last day at WILX will be May 19, and he will continue to live in Holt, Mich., in his new remote role.

The post WILX Lansing Names Rick Sarata General Sales Manager appeared first on TV News Check.

The channels now available on Fire TV:

• Noticias Telemundo Noreste
• Noticias Telemundo California
• Noticias Telemundo Texas
• Noticias Telemundo Florida
• NBC New York News
• NBC Los Angeles News
• NBC Chicago News
• NBC Philadelphia News
• NBC Dallas News
• NBC Washington, D.C. News
• NBC Boston News
• NBC Bay Area News
• NBC South Florida News
• NBC San Diego News
• NBC Connecticut News

“We are excited to grow our existing partnership with Amazon, expanding the reach of our local news content to millions of people on Fire TV and Echo Show devices,” said Matt Schnaars, president, NBCUniversal Content Distribution. “News continues to be a top choice for viewers, and we are proud to reach new audiences with best-in-class journalism from our local stations.”

“We are thrilled to bring our NBC and Telemundo stations’ local news, weather and community information to Fire TV audiences and Echo Show users,” said Meredith McGinn, executive vice president of diginets and local production, NBCUniversal Local. “Powered by our NBC and Telemundo stations in the country’s top TV regions, our local news streaming channels deliver a premium news offering for English and Spanish-speakers, and we cannot wait to introduce our respected news brands to Amazon’s streaming audiences.”

Amazon’s News app on Fire TV is a free and customizable news aggregator that is supported with advertising. The app comes built into the Fire TV experience on all Fire TV streaming media players and smart TVs in the U.S. When viewers open the News app on the Fire TV home screen for the first time, they can select the news that matters most to them from national and local sources. Additionally, Echo Show customers can watch their favorite local news channels in 250 cities from more than 300 local news providers. To get started customers can just say, “Alexa, play news.”

NBCUniversal Local’s streaming channels (FAST) portfolio includes 11 NBC station local news channels, and four Telemundo station regional news channels powered by multiple stations in each region. The 24/7 local channels’ expanding distribution, which varies by channel, already includes Peacock, Samsung TV Plus, The Roku Channel and Xumo Play. NBCUniversal has also made Peacock available on Fire TV, as well as Today All Day and Dateline 24/7 FAST channels. In addition, network apps including NBC, Bravo, E!, Oxygen, Syfy, USA, Universal Kids, MSNBC, NBC News, CNBC, NBC Sports and Telemundo are available on Fire TV.

The post NBCUniversal And Amazon Strike New FAST Channel Deal For NBC And Telemundo Stations appeared first on TV News Check.

For the sake and sanity of those in the league’s scheduling department, cooler heads prevailed.

Rodgers was on the move during this offseason with his trade to the New York Jets, but it was planned well enough in advance that the league and its network partners could get in their requests. The Jets will make six prime-time appearances and have four games in the Sunday afternoon late window (4:25 p.m. ET).

“Navigating the process was largely about Aaron and his future,” Fox EVP, Head of Strategy and Analytics Mike Mulvihill said. “There’s always a lot of focus on marquee quarterbacks that could change teams. And that was certainly the case this year.”

For the second straight year, ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” gets a marquee QB making his debut with another team when the Jets host the Buffalo Bills on Sept. 11. Russell Wilson’s first game with Denver, which coincidentally was in Seattle, averaged 19.85 million viewers, the most watched Monday night game since ESPN took over the package in 2006.

Three of the Jets’ first four games are in a national widow. The Sept. 17 game at Dallas is the featured CBS game in the late window, and Rodgers’ first meeting with Patrick Mahomes is on NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” on Oct. 1 when the Jets host Kansas City.

CBS has at least eight Jets games, with Fox, ESPN, NBC, and Amazon Prime Video getting two apiece. The league does not set networks for all Week 18 games until after Week 17.

Even though this was the first year of the NFL’s new television package, where any game could go to any network, most of the past structure remains in place. Over 90% of Fox’s schedule features at least one NFC team, while CBS remains the top network for the AFC’s top teams.

CBS will have 13 games where both teams are from the NFC, but it still has most of the top AFC matchups.

“The process continues to be more and more collaborative. And the fact that the NFL had so much flexibility for the AFC and NFC packages benefited everybody,” CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus said. “The good news is, even though we have all these great NFC games, we’re still the conference of the AFC, which means we get the benefit of all these star quarterbacks.”

Among other notes and reactions from Thursday night’s NFL schedule release:

Maximizing The Chiefs

CBS has the defending Super Bowl champions for eight games, including six appearances in the late afternoon window.

McManus said the top game on the network’s wish list was the AFC championship game rematch between Kansas City and the Cincinnati Bengals, which will be on Dec. 31. There’s also Buffalo at Kansas City on Dec. 10, which many thought might be a prime-time game.

The Dec. 25 game between the Chiefs and Las Vegas Raiders will also be the Nickelodeon broadcast. It will be the second straight year the slime-filled broadcast will be on Christmas Day. NBC has the Chiefs three times, ESPN/ABC twice, and Fox, NFL Network, and Prime Video one time each.

CBS is also the network for Super Bowl 58 in Las Vegas.

Fox And America’s Team

With Rodgers heading to the Jets and Tom Brady’s retirement, Fox’s priority, more than other years, was ensuring it had as many Dallas Cowboys games as possible.

The Cowboys are on Fox nine times, including six in the late Sunday 4:25 p.m. ET window.

“I’m not exaggerating at all; we spent more time talking about what our fifth-best Dallas game would be than we spent talking about the No. 1 game on our schedule. Because if you are going to get eight or nine Dallas appearances, you’re going to have a couple of blockbusters,” Mulvihill said. “Last year, we had only three at 4:25, so that’s a big change that’s driven mostly by the departures of Brady and Rodgers.”

The key Fox Cowboys games are at Philadelphia on Nov. 5, Nov. 12 against the New York Giants, at Buffalo on Dec. 17, and Dec. 24 at Miami.

New York, New York

Amazon Prime Video got its preference for the first Black Friday game. It wanted the game in New York and ended up getting an AFC East matchup between the Jets and Miami Dolphins on Nov. 24.

“We said, all things being equal, we’d love to start this new holiday tradition in New York. And so they were able to come through with that and an awesome game,” said Marie Donoghue, Amazon’s Vice President of Global Sports Video.

The second “Thursday Night Football” season on Prime Video will make its first trips to Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Dallas, Las Vegas, and New Orleans.

The Chicago Bears, Steelers, Saints, and Jets will make multiple appearances on Prime Video this year after owners approved allowing teams to play more than one game on a four- or five-day week. That means the Arizona Cardinals, Atlanta Falcons, Houston Texans, and Indianapolis Colts will not have any prime-time games this season.

“I think we were already headed in that direction, to some extent already, with the additional Thursday night game we had already added and now adding Black Friday, said Hans Schroeder, the Executive Vice President of NFL Media, about teams making multiple appearances on a short week. “We’re giving our fans the most appropriate matchups to go into a national window. And that was a way to really help the Thursday night package, and do so in a way that we think was appropriate. ”

Monday Night Mania

Besides having flex scheduling beginning in Week 12 for the first time, ESPN has two of the more anticipated games. It has Rodgers’ Jets debut and the Super Bowl rematch between the Eagles and Chiefs on Nov. 20.

“I would argue we’ve got the best two games on the entire board,” said ESPN President of Content Burke Magnus.

There will be games on both ABC and ESPN on Sept. 18, Sept. 25, and Dec. 11. The Dec. 25 game between Baltimore and San Francisco will be on ABC since ESPN has an entire day of NBA matchups.

The Cowboys also make two MNF appearances this season, marking the first time that has happened since the package moved to ESPN in 2006.

Something Blue, Something New

For the fifth time since NBC started airing “Sunday Night Football” in 2006, the first Sunday night game will be between the Giants and Cowboys. The Sept. 10 game also marks the 13th time they have met on SNF.

NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service will have a game for the first time. That will be on Dec. 23 when the Buffalo Bills face the Los Angeles Chargers. The Cincinnati Bengals vs. Pittsburgh Steelers matchup on NBC will be preceded by that.

“We spent a lot of time with the NFL and had productive meetings about the proper positioning of that (Peacock) game,” NBC Sports Chairman Pete Bevacqua said. “We think that’s going to be a great combination of using the power of NBC with that late-afternoon game and driving that audience to Peacock for the regular-season exclusive game.”

The post Jets, Rodgers Receive Plenty Of Marquee Spots As Networks Navigate NFL Schedule Process appeared first on TV News Check.

But another part was that this year’s exceedingly challenged spot ad business has reached a tipping point, and jobs and entire newsrooms are now in the crosshairs as station groups confront hard choices ahead.

In this Talking TV conversation, Emily Barr, TVNewsCheck columnist and former president-CEO of Graham Media, shares her take on whether Sinclair’s actions may be the point of the spear for the entire industry. She weighs in on which markets might be particularly vulnerable as the prospect of recession casts a shadow over the U.S. economy. And she considers local broadcast’s dangerous addiction to political spending and how that creates its own challenges for station groups.

Episode transcript below, edited for clarity. 

Michael Depp: Sinclair’s closure of news operations in five markets prompts a number of questions. Among them: Is this a harbinger of things to come in smaller to mid-sized DMAs with too many competitors and too few advertisers? Is this uniquely a Sinclair problem, a knock-on effect of the Diamond sports bankruptcy? And what are the implications for widening news deserts?

I’m Michael Depp, editor of TVNewsCheck, and this is Talking TV. To help answer these questions this week, I’m with TVNewsCheck columnist and former Graham Media CEO Emily Barr. We’ll be right back with that conversation.

Welcome back, Emily Barr, to Talking TV.

Emily Barr: Glad to be here, Michael. Thank you.

Thank you. Let’s look at the shutting down of the five Sinclair newsrooms first through the lens of Sinclair’s own latest woes. The company is weathering the bankruptcy of its regional sports networks, which it has quarantined somewhat from the rest of the business. But is it safe to say that this is a direct effect of the Diamond bankruptcy?

Well, I obviously don’t have any direct insight into that, but it would seem like the confluence of these two things coming relatively close together would indicate that there might be a cause and effect here.

Are Sinclair stations especially vulnerable to more news closures relative to other groups because of that bankruptcy?

I mean, they might be. I also think just their sheer size. You know, they have a lot of television stations. I’ve lost track of the exact number, but I know it’s in the hundreds. And there are a number that are in smaller markets. And smaller markets, as you know, don’t tend to generate quite the level of revenue and bottom-line profit that the larger ones do. So, I think when you put all that together, you could say they might be a little more vulnerable.

And this is not a good year for spot TV. A potential recession is still darkening our doors and political isn’t coming to the rescue until next year. Where do you see the most vulnerable newsrooms or newsroom positions broadly across the industry right now? And how deep could potential layoffs or closures go at certain groups?

Well, obviously, I hope that that the larger groups do not take a lesson from this, because if they start to close or shutter the smaller market newsrooms, because those are the ones that don’t generate as much revenue, you know, we’re going to create a ripple effect across the whole country that could be very damaging to our industry and to, frankly, our democracy. So obviously, I hope that doesn’t happen.

But I do think that smaller markets in general are vulnerable because, you know, one of the reasons why many of the larger groups said they needed scale, right, was because they said they could operate more efficiently if they had a larger number of stations and they had more bargaining power with the networks and with retrans and things like that. This obviously kind of flies in the face of that, because this says even though we’re a really large group, one of the largest, we can’t make it work necessarily in these smaller markets. So, we’re just going to shut them down, run a kind of generic national newscast out of, I guess, their D.C. bureau, and call it a day.

Are solidly red states particularly vulnerable because there might not be that level of political rescue next year as well?

You know, it’s really tough to say because political is a very opaque process. When you’re a television station, the money comes pouring in or it doesn’t, you know, and it is really a function of how competitive the races are in your respective markets. And obviously, there are races that are both local and regional, and there are those that are national.

The national ones are the ones we hear about. But lots of competitive races go on locally. I think you also have to ask yourself how competitive are these particular television stations in these particular markets. If in fact—and I haven’t looked into this—but if, in fact, they are not terribly competitive, then they may not have been getting a pretty decent size of the advertising pie anyway.

And then when you layer on top of that, you know, auto advertising has been way down because of, you know, the chip shortage and things like that. And you don’t have political this year because political is an every-other-year phenomenon for most markets, it probably has created a kind of dire situation, particularly for a company that’s in the situation that Sinclair is in with their other businesses.

I was talking with someone the other day who said if it wasn’t for political, a shakeup would have happened in this industry a while back already. I wonder how deep is broadcast’s addiction to political spending and how dangerous is that addiction?

It’s pretty significant because political has done nothing but go up, up, up, as the country has become more and more polarized. And, you know, and I think what’s happened is there’s been this pouring of money, I guess, ever since Citizens United. There’s been this pouring of money into local broadcasts. It’s also going elsewhere now. And it’s created this every other year of boom-and-bust kind of situation.

So, if you were to take political out of the equation or if you were, I think some companies might already be doing this, if you look at political and say, well, you really don’t have a lot of control over political, so we’re just going to put that to the side in terms of how we measure your success. We’re going to like, you know, we’ll obviously take the revenue, but we’re not going to use it as a way of measuring the individual market success. That’s not exactly fair, because the best television stations in a market based on ratings are going to get the largest share of political.

That boom-and-bust phenomenon you just mentioned … when you were a station group leader and those sort of vacillations are getting greater and greater, it seems, between the booms and busts. How hard is that to work with and to plan around?

Well, it’s tough to manage because you really have a hard time budgeting for political. You know, you go in with your best guess. You’re almost always wrong by a lot, by a factor of a lot. And you only hope that you’re wrong in the right direction. So, you know, you tend to try to budget somewhat conservatively, or at least in your opinion, you know, realistically. And then if the if the race itself or the races themselves take off, you might wind up sometimes doubling or even more than that, the amount of revenue that comes in for political.

On the other hand, if a race that’s predicted to be really competitive never materializes, you’ll never see the money. So, I’ve seen it occur both ways. You know, and when I was a CEO of Graham, we had a couple of years where money just didn’t come in as we expected. And we had years when it came in much heavier than we thought.

Now, is there a snowball’s chance in hell that the FCC might look at this dynamic, look at the layoffs and the closures that are starting to happen and consider lifting the cap under Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel? Might there be any reason to believe that signals like this could trigger any sort of regulatory relief?

You know, I can imagine that there are some people in Congress who might try to make that happen or might try to ask for that to happen. But the FCC, as it exists today and as it’s constituted, I just don’t see that happening. And I don’t know that anyone in the industry does either. They just haven’t been paying much attention, as you know, to the plight of local broadcasters.

And I think, you know, one point I’d like to make about all of this is for those television stations in the markets that are being shuttered, the local politicians or the senators and congressmen who represent those districts, they no longer have a platform to participate in to talk to the people they represent. I mean, consider that that’s a big deal. If I’m a congressperson coming out of one of those districts and I can’t even talk to anybody on a particular TV station… Now, granted, there are other stations in the market, but it does limit my exposure to my own constituents. So, they may be the ones to actually kick up a little dust about this.

Of course, the flipside of that is they may feel like they have a little less scrutiny, too.

And that’s important. Yes. Yes.

You wrote recently in TVNewsCheck about your own efforts to acquire some newspapers in Maine where you now live with the hopes of establishing a nonprofit news source as a hedge against the kind of widening news deserts that hit smaller communities especially hard. What is the damage to democracy when a newsroom in any medium shuts off its lights?

I mean, it’s very visceral and it’s very real. You stop knowing what’s going on at the school board. You don’t know if your water is clean and potable. You do not know if your government officials are doing what they’re supposed to be doing. And there are countless examples of how this has impacted communities and rippled across, you know, entire populations.

So, you know, I think I think it’s the essence of who we are as a community. And if we don’t have a common set of facts and a common framework which to hold the powerful accountable, then we really are lost as a democracy. I really believe that.

Well, cautionary words on which to end the conversation for now. Thank you, Emily Barr, for helping unpack all of this for us today.

Thank you. Glad to be here.

Thanks to all of you for watching and listening. You can watch past episodes of Talking TV on TVNewsCheck.com and on our YouTube page. We are not turning off the lights here. And we’re back most Fridays with a new conversation. See you next time.

The post Talking TV: Emily Barr On Sinclair’s Shuttered Newsrooms appeared first on TV News Check.

“In April we experienced the earliest spending from a presidential race in the company’s history, with early bookings from the Trump, DeSantis and Biden PACs,” Nexstar Media Group CFO Tom Carter told analysts in the company’s quarterly conference call. “As a result, we remain very optimistic about our growth prospects for political advertising revenue in the ’23-’24 election cycle,”

Carter also reported that Nexstar posted $8 million of political revenues in the first quarter. And it wasn’t the only TV group to book political revenues already.

“We’re seeing political revenue earlier than we’ve ever seen before,” said Fox Corp. Executive Chairman-CEO Lachlan Murdoch. “It’s still small, but it’s sort of unheard of to have it this early in the political cycles. We think that bodes well for the fall as we enter the more significant part of the political cycle.”

Gray Television saw the early spending, too. “For the first time ever in the year before a presidential election we are receiving significant presidential ad buys from all major candidates and parties. This is a great sign for this year and for next year,” said Chairman-CEO Hilton Howell.

Headwinds Blow Strongly

The early political spending points to a big haul for TV next year, and it helps now to battle headwinds in the advertising marketplace.

“The country’s economic malaise continues to put pressure on our businesses,” said E.W. Scripps COO Lisa Knutson. “Local advertising remains relatively stronger than national, largely due to the return of automotive spending. But we do feel pressure across the whole advertising marketplace.”

Knutson said the company continues to see softness in local media in its largest core advertising category, services, which was down 14% in the quarter, with banks and insurance companies showing the largest declines. Scripps’ two strongest performing categories were home improvement and automotive, while auto had its third consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth, driven by local dealers and domestic dealer groups.

“We see local dealers as the best opportunity for continued growth within auto this year,” Knutson said. “In addition, the chip shortage is about half of what it was at this time last year, which is another good sign of spending to come.”

Sinclair Inc. told analysts it expects media revenues to decline compared to second quarter of 2022 due to the absence of political spending and continued year-over-year mid-single-digits subscriber churn. Sinclair CFO Lucy Rutishauser said second quarter core advertising is expected to be down by a low-single-digit percent versus the second quarter of last year, with the decline in core primarily driven by macro-economic weakness.

While some ad categories are strengthening, she noted that there continues to be softness in services, Sinclair’s largest category.

“Coming off the record mid-term election year in 2022, political spending has started off strong, with over three million booked in Q1, which is double the spending of Q1 2019,” noted Sinclair COO Robert Weisbord. “We’re excited to see the strength in political candidate and interest spending this early in the year and we are projecting political spend to continue and set us up nicely for our highly contested presidential race in 2024, which we expect to be record-breaking once again.”

Promising Signs

Gray President-Co-CEO Pat LaPlatney told analysts in his company’s call that auto continued its recovery in 1Q and is pacing to continue improving throughout the year, while other strong categories included services and home improvement.

“Our local direct ad business has been a big priority for us for the past few years and continues to produce new leads and new contract,” LaPlatney said.

In Q&A on the Gray call analyst Dan Kurnos of The Benchmark Co. noted that while other TV groups had reported services as a soft category, Gray had it as a leader. Why the difference?

“Services for us have been moving right along, so I think we have team sales focused on some of these categories,” LaPlatney said. “I think that helps us. So, that’s one of the reasons I think we could be doing a little better than the other guys.”

Spanish-language TelevisaUnivision outperformed the general advertising market in the first quarter, CEO Wade Davis told Wall Street analysts. “According to Magnum, the overall U.S. advertising market declined 6% in the quarter. Our 2% growth amounted to outperformance of 800 basis points, which is on par with the ratings we over-delivered relative to the market last quarter,” he said.

Fox’s Murdoch said auto was continuing its rebound with strong growth, noting growth in the entertainment and restaurant categories, too. “But this is offset by weakness across other categories, such as retail, health and, obviously, sports wagering and betting,” he said. “So, the local ad market does feel soft overall. But for our businesses, particularly in sports and news, we look forward to a decent summer and a strong fall season.”

Fallout Felt

Of course, analysts and investors were keenly interested in Fox Corp.’s agreement to pay Dominion Voting Services $787.5 million to settle a federal court lawsuit in Delaware that had alleged that Fox News Channel defamed the company following the 2020 presidential election. The legal settlement pushed Fox Corp. to a $50 million loss for the quarter.

“We made the business decision to resolve this dispute and avoid the acrimony of a divisive trial and a multi-year appeal process,” Murdoch said. “Our decision was clearly in the best interest of the company and its shareholders. The settlement in no way alters Fox’s commitment to the highest journalistic standards across our company or our passion for unabashedly reporting the news of the day.”

There was also interest in the sudden departure of NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell after he admitted to an inappropriate relationship with a female employee.

With Comcast President Mike Cavanagh now directly overseeing NBCU, Bank of America analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich asked during Q&A whether his dual role should be viewed as a permanent solution.

“The short answer to the question is me stepping in to oversee NBC is quite sustainable,” Cavanagh said.  “Why I say that is as president [of Comcast] I was already overseeing all of this and close to the people that run the NBC businesses and the cable businesses in the corporate areas .… So, while I’ll have to work a little harder, and frankly I’m energized to do so, I look forward actually to spending time getting closer to the NBCU businesses and spending more time deeper in them, and with the leaders there, frankly, since I’m gonna be here a long time.”

For Paramount Global, the big news for its quarterly call was the company slashing its quarterly dividend payment to five cents per share from the previous 24 cents.

President-CEO Bob Bakish spoke of the ad market stabilizing and predicted a return to earnings growth in 2024. Why then, asked Michael Morris of Guggenheim Securities, is this the time for such a large dividend cut?

“The changes we’ve made to our capital allocation policy are totally appropriate for a company that has both the compelling growth opportunity you’ve seen today, but operating in the current macro environment,” said CFO Naveen Chopra. “There’s no debate that our streaming momentum has obviously continued to build, but the macro environment has not gotten less complex. So, it’s prudent really for all companies to optimize their balance sheet for flexibility. That’s exactly what we’re doing by reducing the quarterly dividend to five cents.”

Disney has been cutting costs and headcount. “We’re seeing both sub declines and advertising weakness — and its created some worrisome circumstances for us because it’s obviously having such a negative impact on the economics of that business — and that’s forcing us to look at the cost structure of those channels, which also really comes down more than anything to spending on programming,” said Disney CEO Bob Iger.

He is upbeat on the upfront, but it’s no longer primarily about TV and cable networks. “We see that there’s going to be a substantial growth in digital advertising in this upfront — I mean quite substantial,” Iger said.

A strike by TV and movie writers began during the conference call cycle. For the companies whose TV holdings include a network, executives insisted that they were positioned to deal with the strike — either because they already have programming in the can, are able to focus on live sports and reality programming or a combination of both. The actual impact will depend on just how long the strike lasts.

Rough Quarter For Tech

As one would expect, most of television’s major digital competitors are also dealing with a soft ad market.

Google parent Alphabet saw first quarter total revenues grow 3% to $69.8 billion — a modest gain for a tech company used to much faster growth.

Google’s Advertising, Search & Other category saw revenues grew 2% year-over-year, reflecting an increase in the travel and retail verticals and offset partially by a decline in Finance as well as in media and entertainment, Google SVP-Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler told analysts.

“In YouTube ads, we saw signs of stabilization in performance, while in Network, there was an incremental pullback in advertiser spend,” Schindler said. “Google Other revenues were up 9% year-over-year, led by strong growth in YouTube subscriptions revenues.”

Ruth Porat, CFO Alphabet and Google, provided some more detail in the Q&A with analysts.

“In Network, really it’s a continuation of what we talked about last quarter,” she said. “We saw the ongoing pullback in advertiser spend. I would contrast that—last quarter, we talked about both pullback in YouTube and Network. And we were pleased that we saw the stabilization in ads spend on a sequential basis in YouTube. We still saw ongoing pullback in Network, which tends to be a mix of businesses.”

Facebook parent Meta reported first quarter revenue up 3% to $28.7 billion. “Had foreign exchange rates remained constant with Q1 of last year, total revenue would have been about $816 million higher,” noted CFO Susan Li in the company’s Wall Street conference call.

“We ended the first quarter with over 77,100 employees, down 11% from the fourth quarter as our reported headcount no longer includes substantially all of the employees impacted by the November layoff,” she noted.

Li said Q1 Total Family of Apps revenue was $28.3 billion, up 4% year over year. Q1 Family of Apps ad revenue was $28.1 billion, up 4% or 7% on a constant currency basis. Within ad revenue, the online commerce vertical was the largest contributor to year-over-year growth, followed by healthcare and entertainment and media. Online commerce benefited from strong spend among advertisers in China reaching customers in other markets.

Other verticals remain challenged, meanwhile, with financial services and technology verticals being the largest negative contributors to year-over-year growth, the CFO reported.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg stepped up to take an analyst’s question about the impact of artificial intelligence on Meta’s businesses. And while not providing details yet, he indicated that some AI products will hit the market over the coming months.

“I do think that there’s a big opportunity here,” Zuckerberg said. “It’s going to also help create more engaging experiences which should create more engagement and that by itself creates more opportunities for advertisers.

There’s a bunch of opportunities on the visual side to help advertisers create different creative,” he continued. “We don’t have the tools to do that, over time [we’ll be] eventually making it. So, we’ve always strived to just have an advertiser just be able to tell us what their objective is and then have us be able to do as much of the work as possible for them.

The quarter was more upbeat for Amazon.com, where net revenues increased 9% to $127.4 billion, and advertising rose 23% to $9.5 billion.

“On the advertising side, we’re continuing to buck wider advertising trends and deliver robust growth,” said CEO Andy Jassy in his call with analysts. “I think there are a few reasons for it. First, even in difficult economies, most people still shop. And with the largest e-commerce shopping venue, we have a lot of customers that companies seek to reach.”

Jassy said that, coupled with the company’s substantial investment in machine learning to make sure customers see relevant ads when they’re looking for various items, has meant that advertisements have performed unusually well for brands. “It’s also worth noting that we’re still very early in our efforts to find a way to thoughtfully place ads in our broader video, live sports, audio, and grocery properties,” he said. “We have a lot of upside still in advertising.”

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The S&P 500 lost 7.02 points, or 0.2%, to 4,130.62, with two out of every three stocks in the index falling. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 221.82, or 0.7%, to 33,309.51, while the Nasdaq composite rose 22.06, or 0.2%, to 12,328.51.

Disney was one of the heaviest weights dragging on the market. It dropped 8.7% after it said it lost streaming subscribers in the U.S. and Canada last quarter, surprising analysts. That was despite its earnings and revenue for the latest quarter roughly matching Wall Street’s forecasts.

Some banks beaten down by the industry’s mini-panic were also under heavy pressure again, and PacWest Bancorp sank 22.7% after saying it saw 9.5% of its deposits leave last week. It said the majority of the flight occurred in two days after news reports said the bank was talking with potential investors and partners, raising worries for its customers.

Investors have been hunting for the next possible victim in the U.S. banking industry after high interest rates helped lead to three high-profile failures since March.

Also falling was Peloton Interactive, which dropped 8.9%. It’s offering free seat posts after recalling 2.2 million of its exercise bikes. The assembly can break while someone’s riding it.

Helping to limit the losses for the overall market was a report showing inflation at the wholesale level was a bit cooler last month than economists expected. It followed a report from the prior day that showed inflation at the consumer level was also behaving largely as forecast.

The reports helped reaffirm expectations on Wall Street that the Federal Reserve will hold off on hiking interest rates again at its next meeting in June. That would be the first time that’s happened in more than a year.

The Fed has been hiking rates at a furious pace to get the worst inflation in decades under control. Inflation has come down from its peak last year, but high rates have also sent prices for investments tumbling, helped cause turmoil for the banking industry and slowed the economy enough that many investors are preparing for a recession later this year.

A separate report on Thursday said more workers filed for unemployment benefits last week than expected. That’s bad news for workers and adds to concerns about a potential recession because the job market has been one of the main pillars propping up the economy.

But a cooling labor market would also carry a benefit for the Fed, which fears that a too-hot job market could put upward pressure on inflation.

Following the reports, Treasury yields fell on expectations for a less aggressive Fed. Traders are betting on a high probability that the Fed will have to cut interest rates later this year. Rate cuts act like steroids for financial markets but would likely happen only if the economy slides into recession and needs such oomph.

The Fed, meanwhile, has said it’s unsure of its next move but does not anticipate rate cuts this year if things go as expected.

“While it’s encouraging to see inflation moderating and indications of easing labor conditions, investors should expect volatility with ongoing banking concerns and a still unresolved debt ceiling debate,” said Mike Loewengart, head of model portfolio construction at Morgan Stanley Global Investment Office.

For banks, the broader concern is that the industry’s troubles may cause a pullback in lending, which would hurt the economy. In the meantime, the U.S. government is edging closer to a June 1 deadline where it could run out of cash unless Congress allows it to borrow more. Economists say a resulting default on the U.S. government’s debt could be catastrophic for the economy.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 3.39% from 3.44% late Wednesday. It helps set rates for mortgages and other important loans. The two-year Treasury yield, which moves more on expectations for the Fed, slipped to 3.90% from 3.91%.

On the winning side of Wall Street was Robinhood Markets, which rallied 6.4% after reporting a smaller loss and better revenue for the latest quarter than expected. It also launched a way for advanced traders to make some kinds of trades 24 hours a day, five days a week.

In markets abroad, stocks in London slipped 0.1% after the Bank of England raised interest rates to their highest level since late 2008. The move was widely expected as inflation remains high in the U.K.

Stock indexes were mixed elsewhere across Europe and Asia, with most making only modest moves.

AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.

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The national qualifiers advanced through local and regional bees that took place through early April. All rounds of this year’s national competition — preliminaries, quarterfinals, semifinals and finals — will take place at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center.

Highlights of the 2023 Scripps National Spelling Bee field:

• The spellers range in age from 9 to 14.
• Nearly 80% — 182 spellers — are competing in their first Scripps National Spelling Bee this year.
• There are 41 spellers returning from the 2022 field and 49 spellers who have previously competed in the national competition.
• Two are returning finalists from the 2022 national competition: Kirsten Tiffany Santos from Houston and Surya Kapu from Salt Lake City. They tied for fifth last year.
• Akash Vukoti from San Angelo, Texas, is competing in the national competition for a record sixth time. Fourteen spellers are competing in their third Scripps National Spelling Bee.
• There are spellers from all 50 states. Texas has the largest representation with 21 national competitors. Ohio and California rank second largest with 15 each, followed by Illinois with 14.
• Eleven qualifiers are from outside the 50 United States, representing the Bahamas, Canada, Germany, Ghana, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and Puerto Rico.
  

Find more information on the field of 2023 national competitors at spellingbee.com.

“Bee Week is a truly unforgettable experience, combining the thrill and accomplishment of onstage competition with the joy of making lifelong connections offstage,” said Corrie Loeffler, executive director of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

“This year, the Bee will continue its tradition of capturing hearts and inspiring big dreams with a refreshed look: We’ve updated our logo with a new design that’s both bold and playful – indicative of the Bee spirit at every level of competition. New, vibrant branding will be woven throughout the halls of the Gaylord and across the TV programming. Fans watching along at home will see some familiar faces featured on spellingbee.com and this year’s broadcasts, celebrating what makes the Bee so captivating: our spellers.”

Bee Week 2023 also will include two dynamic author presentations for spellers and their families:

• Jason Reynolds, 1 New York Times bestselling author and the Library of Congress’ national ambassador for young people’s literature.
• Zaila Avant-garde, 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee champion and author of “It’s Not Bragging if it’s True.”

The Bee on Scripps Networks: (All times Eastern)
The Bee will again air on Ion and Bounce this year after a successful 2022 premiere on Scripps’ national networks. In the first year on its new TV home, Bee programming was seen by 7.5 million viewers, and the live finals drew its largest television audience since 2015 as millions tuned in to watch Harini Logan, a 14-year-old speller from San Antonio, Texas, take home the Scripps Cup in the competition’s first-ever spell-off.

The 2023 broadcast/livestream of onstage spelling follows this schedule (all times Eastern):

• The preliminaries will be streamed on Ion Plus, Bounce XL and spellingbee.com from 9 a.m. to 7:25 p.m. on Tuesday, May 30.
• The quarterfinals will be streamed on Ion Plus, Bounce XL and spellingbee.com from 8 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. on Wednesday, May 31.
• The semifinals will be streamed on Ion Plus, Bounce XL and spellingbee.com from 2:30-6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 31. A special semifinals broadcast will air on Ion and Bounce later that evening from 8-10 p.m.
• The finals will air live in primetime on Ion and Bounce from 8-10 p.m. on Thursday, June 1.

In addition to Ion and Bounce, the semifinals and finals will also air on Scripps’ national diginets Defy TV, Grit, Ion Mystery and Laff. A rebroadcast of the finals will be available on Scripps News on June 2 from 9-11 p.m. and again June 3 from 8-10 p.m. The Scripps Networks can be found free over-the-air as well as on cable, satellite and streaming platforms.

The 2023 Bee also will celebrate three special recognitions:

• 2023 Educator of the Year, presented by SugarBee Apple: Gina Calhoun, an eighth-grade teacher at Ashe County Middle School in Warrensville, North Carolina. Calhoun has served as the school’s spelling bee coordinator for the past eight years.
• 2023 Regional Partner of the Year: Ruth Keim, coordinator for regional partner WITF Public Media, a Pennsylvania PBS affiliate. Keim has developed central Pennsylvania’s spelling bee program over the past 26 years.
• 2023 Regional Volunteer of the Year: Daniel Notman, volunteer pronouncer for the Central Texas regional spelling bee organized by Rapoport Holdings, LLC. Notman is a project manager in the office of the president of Baylor University.

The post Scripps National Spelling Bee To Host 231 Spellers At 2023 Bee Week appeared first on TV News Check.