Starting Sept. 1, WGN Chicago; WVBT Norfolk, Va.; and KLFY Lafayette La., will carry CW’s primetime entertainment, live sports, and special event programming.
TVN’S MEDIA JOBS
TVNewsCheck’s May Day Sales Special On Job Postings
Happy May Day. Advertise your TV job openings in May to save $100. What distinguishes our classified service is not just the look of the ad — the layout, market information, use of pictures and videos — but what TVNewsCheck does AFTER the ad is placed.
The current carriage agreement between Paramount and Charter, the nation’s second largest cable operator behind Comcast, was set to expire at midnight ET Tuesday (April 30). The two companies have been in renewal discussions for months. The two sides reached a short extension on the deadline in order to prevent a blackout as active talks continue, a source confirmed.
BRAND CONNECTIONS
TVN’S MANAGING MEDIA BY MARY COLLINS
Noncompetes Are A Distraction From Media’s Real Issues
The FTC’s recent move to ban noncompete agreements and the media management uproar that ensued are a sideline from more pressing industry concerns, namely attracting and encouraging the next generation of problem solvers.
PROGRAMMING EVERYWHERE 2024
TVN Video: How Social Media Stars Grow Niches Into Audiences
Social content creators from TikTok, Instagram and YouTube share how they bypassed TV’s gatekeepers and found enormous, loyal audiences thanks to compelling content, a strong narrative voice and exceptional production values (achieved with a skeleton crew) in this video from TVNewsCheck’s Programming Everywhere conference. Click here to register as a TVN subscriber and get access to all videos from this exclusive event.
Exclusives
David Zaslav famously said in 2022 that Warner Bros. Discovery doesn’t “have to have the NBA.” It appears Wall Street disagrees. WBD’s already rock-bottom stock price plummeted nearly 10% on Tuesday after a report in The Wall Street Journal signaled the media conglomerate could be in for an expensive battle to maintain its NBA broadcast rights, with shares ending Tuesday at $7.36. That figure represents an all-time low for WBD, the parent company of CNN.
On Tuesday, Internet TV provider Fubo dropped all Warner Bros. Discovery networks from its lineup, alleging that the media company was seeking “above-market rates” and refused to license Turner Sports networks separately.
Fox Corp’s 2025 broadcast of Super Bowl LIX is nearly a year away, slated to air Feb. 9 from New Orleans. During early talks with potential advertisers, however, the company is already making a bid to sell 30-second ads for at least $7 million each, according to three people familiar with the matter. The price could mark a slightly higher starting point in negotiations than that established by Paramount Global, which aired this year's Super Bowl in February to a record audience and initially sought between $6.5 million and $7 million for a half-minute ad berth.
QUARTERLY REPORT
Amazon Reports Strong 1Q Results Driven By Its Cloud-Computing Unit And Prime Video Ad Dollars
The Seattle-based e-commerce giant said it brought in $143.31 billion in revenue in the first three months of this year, a 13% jump compared to the same period last year. Net income came out to $10.43 billion, or 98 cents per share. That soundly beat Wall Street analysts' expectations for 84 cents a share, according to FactSet.
In its first NewFronts presentation, mobile carrier T-Mobile unveiled an expansion of its advertising solutions unit, boosting both digital and brick-and-mortar retail media, mobile app, and CTV inventory. The expansion includes T-Mobile owned-and-operated inventory across its in-store retail media network, as well as more than 20,000 screens via T-Mobile and Metro by T-Mobile retail locations nationwide. T-Mobile said the aggregate reach across its screens currently is 240 million-plus consumers across screens, which can be targeted and served ads vis its "Magenta" ad platform.
Artificial intelligence is proving both a blessing and a bane for news publishers. On the one hand, generative AI technologies promise productivity gains for newsrooms when used responsibly and transparently. However, it also has the potential to create a minefield of misinformation for the public and for journalists to navigate. There’s also the allegation of copyright infringement that news publishers have begun to legally challenge. These are just a few examples of how AI disrupts news, but there’s another: AI-powered search.
MONDAY OVERNIGHTS
‘All American’ Posts Season High In Audience, ‘SYTYCD’ Eyes Low
ABC's American Idol (4.6 million/0.5) hit a Monday high in viewers for the season, and was up in the demo. Fox's So You Think You Can Dance (760,000/0.1) slipped to a new audience low. CBS’s NCIS easily drew Monday’s largest audience (6.7M/0.4), while ABC’s American Idol led the night in the demo (4.6M/0.5) .
The Good Morning America regular had been with the network for a decade.
The purchase would give SES a combined fleet of more than 100 satellites.
QUARTERLY REPORT
SiriusXM Loses 445,000 Sat Radio, 64,000 Pandora Subs
The audio entertainment company, home to Howard Stern and in rebuilding mode, pointed to a “promising” takeup of its revamped app.
TVN’S MEDIA JOBS
New Jobs Posted To TVNewsCheck
New jobs posted to TVNewsCheck’s Media Job Center include an opening for a digital platform specialist. Other existing job openings include ones for an account executive, executive producer, meteorologist, weekend anchor, sales manager, senior newscast producer, digital video producer and reporter.
Streaming sales leaders from Gray Television, E.W. Scripps, Hearst Television, Ticker and Megaphone TV will share the latest developments in technology and strategy for OTT and FAST channels. Learn more about this critically important revenue source for broadcasters in a TVNewsCheck Working Lunch Webinar on May 16. Register here.
