Univision’s acquisition by two investment firms in the wake of Apollo Global Management’s Terrier deal isn’t a sign of investor cash heading into broadcasting, industry analysts told us this week. The purchase of a majority stake in Univision by Searchlight Capital Partners and Forgelight, announced Feb. 25 (see 2002250053), isn’t expected to hit regulatory snags at the FCC or DOJ. The Univision deal “isn’t a bellwether of a flow of private equity into broadcasting,” said Patrick Communications media broker Gregory Guy.
Actions by the TV Oversight Monitoring Board after a critical FCC report aren’t enough to address the board’s failings, said Parents Television Council President Tim Winter in an interview Monday. TVOMB’s actions, which include announcing plans to implement spot checks of content and issuing its first “annual report” in January, are “only to get federal regulators off their back, so they can say they did something,” Winter said. Since the board is controlled by the programming industry and serves as its own oversight, it can't be effective, Winter said. “The TVOMB had more than eight months to implement meaningful reforms that would demonstrate to parents the Board’s commitment to improving the ratings system and its oversight,” Winter wrote TVOMB. “If TVOMB does not see a problem, they are unlikely to find remedies." Winter wants Congress and the FCC to disband the board and create a more effective system. The spot checks, changes to the organization’s website, and the annual report were among FCC recommendations to Congress (see 1905160085). “The Monitoring Board took this feedback extremely seriously,” it said in January. TVOMB and its current chairman, NCTA President Michael Powell, didn’t comment now.
The FCC unanimously approved an NPRM Friday seeking comment on proposals to allow devices that use the TV white space to operate with higher power in less-congested areas. The item’s final text hadn’t been released, but the final notice was little changed from the draft, said Office of Engineering and Technology staff. That was as expected (see 2002250084).
Commissioners Mike O’Rielly, Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks Friday criticized an FCC NPRM, approved 3-2, proposing sharing communications outage information with other federal and state agencies. The two Democrats dissented.
Nexstar and Sinclair expect a 2020 political advertising boom and didn’t lay out any immediate merger and acquisitions plans, in respective Q4 calls Wednesday. Nexstar CEO Perry Sook and Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley have opposite views on the upside of sports betting. Executives of both companies said their stocks are cheap. Sinclair ended the day down 15% at $23.36. Nexstar fell 6% to $107.02.
Military training, precision agriculture and immigration enforcement are among possible uses for datacasting using public TV spectrum and ATSC 3.0, America’s Public Television Stations’ summit heard Tuesday. FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly endorsed public TV’s focus on datacasting, in a speech. “You may just be on to something here,” he said. “Please keep me posted.”
America’s Public Television Stations CEO Patrick Butler isn’t concerned about public TV being level funded in the next federal budget, but in an interview Monday conceded that APTS plans to ask for a funding increase might face difficulties. “I want to manage expectations,” he told the 2020 APTS Public Media Summit.
The “time lag” will be shorter on the release of future form 323 ownership data, said FCC Media Bureau Chief Michelle Carey at an FCBA brown-bag lunch discussion Thursday, after being asked about the bureau’s recent release of 2017 ownership data. Carey and other Media Bureau officials at the event also discussed the transition from the consolidated database system (CDBS), upcoming rulemakings and ATSC 3.0. Carey said the bureau is already working on the data collected from the 2019 forms but didn’t say whether the next such report would include the most recent information.
The FCC’s latest broadcast ownership data shows falling minority and female ownership in 2017 and is already 3 years old, said Commissioner Geoffrey Starks and groups opposed to media consolidation, about Friday’s report. “To effectively address the lack of media ownership diversity, we cannot use stale data and must get better at assessing the extent of the problem in a timely manner,” Starks said. “While supposedly the FCC improved data collection in 2016, the data released today is from 2017,” said Cheryl Leanza, the United Church of Christ Communications Office attorney who successfully represented Prometheus Radio Project and other petitioners before the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the most recent FCC media ownership case. The data “is out of date upon release,” Leanza said.
FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks’s planned Puerto Rico field hearing on disaster preparation and response in Puerto Rico is a chance to draw attention to issues on the island, but the short lead time between the event’s announcement Thursday and its Feb. 21 date have caught some stakeholders by surprise, they told us (see 2002130012). “We’re playing catch-up to this announcement,” said Reuben Jusino, who consults on FCC matters for the Puerto Rico Radio Broadcasters Association. “We’re trying to get a turn at the table,” he said. “It’s an important opportunity.”