Radio & Television Business Report

For Connoisseur Media, and any other broadcast licensee currently navigating a foreign ownership remediation at the FCC, a Tuesday filing brought some much-needed clarity, but also a few speed bumps — especially as the Jeff Warshaw-led radio group goes full steam ahead on its aggressive M&A plan.

A three-judge federal appeals court panel on Friday expressed doubts that the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia erred in its August 2025 decision that a racial discrimination claim lobbed by Standard General head Soohyung Kim against the FCC has no merit.

With the May 7 release of its first quarter earnings results, Gray Media indicated that it is seeing some "softness" in core advertising in Q2. Now, one prominent Wall Street financial analyst has responded by slicing his 1-year target price for "GTN."

It's a unit of a publicly traded diversified holding company known as Innovate Inc., and with Thursday's release of that entity's first quarter earnings came an up-close look at the financial health of low-power TV-focused licensee HC2 Broadcasting. Just how is HC2, a "Spectrum" segment, performing for Innovate's investors?

Declines in the traditional ad marketplace fueled dollar dips in the first quarter of 2026 that went beyond Urban One's own forecasts, with Digital revenue sliding by 33.6% due to a variety of factors — including marketer "DEI"-influenced pullbacks.

Coming this summer to TelevisaUnivision: La Radio del Mundial, as the Spanish-language radio operator partners with Fútbol de Primera to carry live, play-by-play FIFA World Cup 2026 coverage across nine of its flagship AM/FM stations in New York, Houston, Dallas, and Chicago, running June 11 through July 19.

A professional tackle football circuit played on sand, founded by former NFL linebacker and two-time Super Bowl champion Tully Banta-Cain, has signed iHeartRadio as its Official Audio and Radio Partner, with events already underway in California and destination stops planned across the country through 2027.

The Radio Hall of Fame's Class of 2026 runs the gamut from the executive at the helm of America's largest radio company to a Chicagoland radio legend, with the Museum of Broadcast Communications announcing eight inductees today.

In the midst of turmoil in Iran dominating his agenda, President Donald Trump admitted that the fight to keep AM radio in vehicles had slipped off his radar — but recommitted to acting on the bipartisan AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act during an interview last week.

Political advertisers heading into the 2026 election cycle have a new avenue into premium audio inventory, as Global Media's DAX US has struck an exclusive integration with Basis, the cross-channel media orchestration platform.

For the second time in three years, NPR is going back to the well — this time offering voluntary buyouts, with the prospect of layoffs to follow, as President and CEO Katherine Maher works to close an $8 million budget gap created by the loss of federal public media subsidies.

Paramount Skydance Corp. is headed for a one-notch credit downgrade at the close of its merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, and S&P Global Ratings says the combined company has a long road back thanks to an enormous debt load.

Blocking AI crawlers from scraping a station's website may seem like an obvious defensive move, but the National Association of Broadcasters is urging members to think carefully before acting. New guidance from the organization lays out four technical approaches to managing automated crawler access alongside business and editorial considerations.

Amid a widespread national slowdown in population growth, midsized cities remained close to the previous year’s patterns between July 1, 2024, and July 1, 2025. Drop-offs in average growth were steeper among the largest cities, according to U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2025 population estimates.

New data from Cumulus Media's Audio Active Group and Westwood One finds that marketers and agency personnel are commuting to the office at the highest rate recorded since tracking began in April 2022. An Advertiser Perceptions survey of 301 marketers and agencies conducted April 1-13 finds 92% commuting to an office in some fashion.

The Medallas de Cortez awards recognize excellence in Hispanic radio programming, sales, and management and are named in honor of Raoul Cortez, who founded the first Spanish-language radio station in the nation. This year’s awards will be presented at the 17th Hispanic Radio Conference, next week in Phoenix.