newsbot

In September Graham Media parent Graham Holdings Company transferred voting control without notifying the FCC beforehand. Essentially Donald Graham, for estate planning purposes, ceded majority voting control such that no one individual has more than 50% voting control (with his daughter Laura G. O’Shaughnessy now having the largest share but short of a majority.) In October Graham Media filed with the FCC to reflect that change. Bottom line, GHC remains family-owned; they're just rearranging the deck chairs. He who shall not be named referenced this today and, being the great reporter he is, asked his readership what this is all about instead of actually reading the FCC filing and finding out on his own. https://enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov/dataentry/api/download/attachment/25076f9192b94c4a0192c50f85101708

Sports Director Tom Leyden out at Boston 25 as part of sweeping cutbacks at the struggling Apollo Cox station https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2021/09/13/boston-25-news-staffers-report-staff-cuts-newscas.html

It wasn't quite the takedown the screaming headline implied. It was more nuanced than I expected.

Roku devices are very appealing to consumers, but users don't see what goes on behind the scenes. As the 800 pound gorilla in the streaming space, Roku can leverage their market share to extract usurious terms from content providers. It's no coincidence that it's the biggest players that are fighting back. Hopefully in time consumers will get wise to this, but they have a lot to learn.

We (meaning Portland, ME) lost Antenna TV on cable when Tribune had its dispute with Spectrum and it never came back. After a while as an OTA-only channel Antenna TV got dropped in favor of one of Tegna's in-house multicast channels.

Former WCVB anchor reportedly received $15 million in embezzled funds https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/04/14/business/former-cfo-alden-shoe-co-charged-30-million-embezzlement-scheme

The elephant in the room in the Tegna/racism situation is Standard General's ongoing proxy fight. It behooves them to depress Tegna's stock price and make it more vulnerable for acquisition. Fearful stakeholders may be more receptive to Standard's offer as the situation escalates.

WFXT anchor/reporter Malini Basu is leaving for a gig in her home market https://www.boston.com/news/media/2021/03/26/malini-basu-departing-boston-25-news

Different networks targeting different demographics regardless of sharing a distributor.

Interesting. Decades has lost ground to newer netlets like StartTV which replaced Decades on the CBS O&Os. Maybe there's hope for Decades after all!

Perhaps the outcome colors perception of the ethics of the situation, but it things had ended badly for the hostages...meanwhile, the media chin-stroking continues... https://www.pressherald.com/2021/03/11/police-posed-as-reporter-in-phone-call-with-hostage-taker/

Portland, Maine's Sinclair station found itself in an ethical dilemma when it allowed a police negotiator to pose as a WGME reporter in a hostage situation https://www.adweek.com/tvspy/police-pose-as-local-reporter-in-hostage-situation/228780/

She's married to a Portland police officer so she has a degree of familiarity with cop life. Her predecessor in the gig (notwithstanding the current interim spokesperson) was also an ex-broadcaster and served in the position for 32 years.

WCSH reporter Shannon Moss will become the next spokesperson for the Maine State Police https://www.pressherald.com/2021/03/04/well-known-tv-reporter-will-replace-long-time-voice-of-the-maine-state-police/

The RSNs were definitely the cause for Sinclair's woes - their timing couldn't have been worse. That said, the RSNs should in time recover and begin making a positive contribution to their bottom line once in-person attendance at sporting events returns to pre-pandemic levels. The fines are a rounding error on their bottom line by comparison.