Covenant Educational Media has closed the deal for the sale of KVTT-FM Dallas-Fort Worth to North Texas Public Broadcasting for $18 million.
North Texas Public Broadcasting, run by CEO/President Mary Anne Alhadeff, also owns KERA-FM Dallas-Fort Worth.
American Women in Radio & Television is now accepting entries for the 2010 Gracie Awards.
The awards honor programming for, by, and about women.
The 35th Annual Gracie Awards will be presented May 25-26 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills.
For the first time, AWRT is accepting online entries. The deadline is January 8.
The Amarillo Globe-News and KFDA-TV Amarillo have launched an extensive content-sharing partnership.
KFDA-TV will provide the newspaper’s daily weather information that will be printed in color.
The Globe-News will contribute obituaries and an RSS feed of headlines for the KFDA-TV website.
The partnership also will allow users to upload and share photographs.
"We are, to a certain extent, competitors, but we bring different strengths to the table," Publisher Les Simpson said in a Globe-News story.
“This arrangement allows us to work together for the benefit of readers and viewers."
M&M Broadcasters has made a deal to buy four Texas stations from Simmons Media.
Texas stations include KLRK-FM Marlin, KRQX-AM/FM and KRZI-AM Waco-Temple-Killeen.
M&M is headed by Gary Moss who also owns KCLE-AM and KJSA-AM Dallas-Fort Worth.
October 13 was the last day that RTNDA would be known by that name.
RTNDA has changed its name to RTDNA – the Radio Television Digital News Association.
This change offers services not only to news directors but also to all electronic journalists, including the newest members of the newsrooms working on digital platforms.
The newest addition to their services is their
website which is constantly updated with new content, videos, podcasts and social media connections.
There also are links and connections to their code of ethics, coverage guidelines, journalism news, and soon webinars that will bring training to your desktop.
The association said its mission to help news professionals do their jobs well does not change.
"RTDNA will still do what it does best--protect journalists and allow them to provide unencumbered coverage, offer training in the best practices for all digital journalists, and recognize excellence within the field of journalism,” according to an
online statement.
We'll just do it with a renewed sense of purpose, a more inclusive spirit and a new name."
“This TV,” a new digital network from MGM Domestic Television and Weigel Broadcasting, has announced the addition of Belo’s WFAA-TV Dallas-Fort Worth.
"’This TV’ was a natural choice," said Michael Devlin, WFAA's president and general manager.
"’This TV’ provides an incredibly strong lineup of programming for our viewers and a completely new revenue stream for the station."
Other Texas affiliates include KPRC-TV Houston and KCBD-TV Lubbock.
Nexstar Broadcasting kicked off a campaign on Oct. 12 to remind local advertisers why spot TV is a smart buy.
The campaign, “101 Reasons TV Advertising Works,” highlights Nexstar’s commitment to developing new and creative ways for local businesses to take advantage of local television.
The first 39 spots debuted in 33 markets on Oct. 12, with each spot running 10-20 seconds in length.
"With the challenging economic climate affecting local businesses, it is important for broadcasters to aggressively advocate for the benefits of local television as the advertising platform and medium that consistently delivers the best results," said Nexstar President/Chairman/CEO Perry Sook.
The Federal Trade Commission has revised its guidelines on the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising.
The new guidelines, as set out in the FTC's
notice, make three key departures from previous guidance that could impact advertising:
- “Endorsers," as well as advertisers, can be held liable for false or unsubstantiated claims or for failing to disclose material connections between the parties
- There is no more"safe harbor" whereby testimonials can be qualified by a "results may vary" disclaimer
- Celebrities should disclose relationships with advertisers when endorsing products
While the guidelines are advisory in nature, failure to comply increases the risk of stations and advertisers finding themselves in violation of the law.
With the original due date of Nov. 1 for the initial filing of all biennial Form 323s fast approaching, but without Office of Management and Budget approval of the new report forms themselves, the
FCC has announced, on its own motion, that it is extending the deadline for filing those reports.
Harry Cole, an attorney with TAB Associate Member Fletcher Heald and Hildreth, said the FCC will release a public notice at some future point, specifying a new filing deadline no less than 30 days after that public notice.
The move comes after TAB and other state broadcast associations and the NAB petitioned the OMB in opposition to the newly-revised form.
TAB opposed the new form for a variety of reasons, but primarily because the FCC did not make a copy of the newly revised form public until after the deadline for filing petitions for reconsideration.
The FCC has fined John L. White, licensee of KOLJ-AM Quanah, $7,000 for “unauthorized operation of the station at a variance from his license without first filing for and obtaining commission approval for the modification of the station’s facilities.”
FCC documents said on June 5, 2008, KOLJ went silent after its tower collapsed in severe storms that also caused damage to other station equipment.Four days later, Media Technology, the station’s former licensee, filed a request for Special Temporary Authority for KOLJ to remain silent.
In February, FCC staff granted Media Technology’s request, cautioning that, “notwithstanding the grant of STA, the station’s broadcast license would automatically expire as a matter of law if broadcast operations did not resume by June 6.”
On June 4, KOLJ notified the FCC that it had resumed operation in March with a replacement tower at a different electrical height from its licensed tower.
KOLJ filed a concurrent request for an engineering STA to operate the replacement tower, specifying a height of 75.7 electrical degrees, reduced from its authorized height of 93.4 electrical degrees.
The STA request also sought permission to operate at a reduced nighttime power of 0.063 kW from the previous nighttime power of 0.073 kW, and included a nighttime allocation study demonstrating that no impermissible interference would be caused to other stations as a result of this proposal.
In July, FCC staff granted KOLJ’s engineering STA request, but stated the station “apparently constructed a tower with different electrical height from the licensed tower without first having obtained a construction permit from the commission,” in apparent violation of the FCC rules.
The FCC notified the station that it “must immediately file a Form 301 application for construction permit specifying the new tower, and upon grant of the application, must apply for a license to cover the permit on Form 302-AM.”
The letter also advised that the STA was granted “without prejudice as to whatever action the commission may take” with regard to its unauthorized construction and operation of the Station at its modified facilities.
The FCC KOLJ “failed to timely file a modification application and continued station operations for more than nine weeks at its modified facilities before seeking an STA to so operate.
Nevertheless, because he held a license to operate station KOLJ at the same transmitter site where the station’s original tower was destroyed by a storm, the latter transgression is not comparable to "pirate" wireless operations, which typically have been subject to forfeitures of approximately $10,000.”
The FCC said it took those facts into consideration and instead proposed forfeiture for the full $3,000 amount for the failure to timely file the modification application and STA request, but reduced the proposed forfeiture for the unauthorized operation from the $10,000 base amount to $4,000.
In a
public notice released on Sept. 3, the FCC reminded video programming distributors that as of Jan. 1, 2010, 100 percent of new, nonexempt Spanish-language programming must be closed captioned.
In a second
public notice released on Sept. 3, the FCC clarified certain aspects of video programming distributors’ obligation to make emergency information accessible to persons with hearing and vision disabilities.
Finally, the FCC's June
erratum concerning the publication of contact information under the revised rules was published in the Federal Register on Sept. 11, but expressly states that the rule change is not effective until the FCC publishes a separate document in the Federal Register announcing the effective date.
While the publications are addressed to “video programming distributors” (i.e., broadcasters, cable operators, and DBS providers) the entities directly subject to the rules, networks and producers, should take note of these recent developments as well because, as a practical matter, distributors generally assign captioning responsibilities to program networks and program producers whose programming they distribute.
FCC announced a series of open "workshops" in connection with its review of the broadcast multiple ownership rules – the rules that restrict the number of radio or television stations which one party can own and which restrict the cross-ownership of radio and TV stations and newspapers in the same market.
The FCC is poised to begin its quadrennial review of the ownership rules in 2010.
The open proceedings just announced (without details of how many workshops will be held) will be used to gather information for the FCC's review of the rules.
According to the public notice "the FCC will seek viewpoints and information from a broad range of experts; consumers; public interest and trade associations; labor unions; media industry representatives, both traditional and new; and other interested persons," as the first step in this review process.
As part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the FCC was instructed to do a regular review of broadcast multiple ownership rules, seemingly with the intent of reducing the prohibitions of those rules as part of the general deregulatory spirit of that Act.
Originally, proceedings were to review the rules every two years, a biennial review.
However, those reviews kept dragging on and becoming consolidated with each other.
So, Congress eventually amended the law to require that the review take place only once every four years.
But each time the FCC has taken action on the rules, especially any time there has been any liberalization, there has been a major outcry from consumer groups that they were left out of the process.
Perhaps the just announced hearings are an attempt to short circuit that protest by getting the public involved even before the process begins.
