Amazon and PBS signed a multiyear agreement for a collection of PBS Kids series programs available exclusively through Amazon Prime Video. Prime members can watch select videos via the Amazon Video app for TVs, connected and mobile devices and online, said Amazon. Programs will premiere on PBS stations and then become available on Amazon Prime Video after an undisclosed period of time, the companies said. PBS Kids titles also will be available with the Amazon FreeTime Unlimited subscription service. PBS Kids shows focus on “fundamental academic areas” such as literacy, science, technology, engineering and math, plus collaboration, communication, critical thinking and creativity, said Lesli Rotenberg, general manager, PBS children's media and education.
DTS said it amended a credit agreement with Wells Fargo and others for a term loan and revolving line of credit to buy intellectual property rights from iBiquity (see 1509020039). The amendment permits the transaction and requires DTS to prepay the term loan in installments of $10 million by July 15, $5 million by Sept. 30 and $5 million by Dec. 30, it said in an SEC filing Thursday.
The news publishing industry “continues to be uniquely constrained by a federal rule that deprives newspapers of investment,” said the Newspaper Association of America in meetings with Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, aides to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, and aides to Chairman Tom Wheeler Thursday. “Constraining broadcasting companies from investing in publishing does not foster diversity, localism or competition -- in fact, this irrational and outdated rule prevents investment that could support high-quality journalism in local communities,” said the NAA in docket 14-50. “There is no record evidence that maintaining the cross-ownership rule supports diversity or that repealing it would threaten diversity.” Earlier last week, NAA slammed a draft FCC order that wouldn't junk the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership ban on same-market properties in both classes (see 1606290052). At the meetings, in addition to lawyers for NAA was Sara Johnson Borton, publisher of South Carolina papers including The State in Columbia and Hilton Head Island's The Island Packet.
Broadcasters in the incentive auction​ “didn’t have price leverage” and couldn't demand or hold out for certain prices, said NAB General Counsel Rick Kaplan in a blog post Thursday. Claims that broadcasters drove up the price of spectrum are “a fundamental misunderstanding of the auction,” Kaplan said. “A station that was frozen and is a provisional winner didn’t set its price, it’s simply in line to receive what the FCC was offering when the FCC determined that it didn’t have anywhere left to put the station in the new television band,” Kaplan said. “Now the wireless industry is on the clock and we’ll see what kind of demand they truly have for spectrum.” The commission said Tuesday that broadcasters would get $86 billion if all their bids were accepted by wireless carriers (see 1606290081).
Tegna made a strategic investment in Kin Community, a video content provider targeting young women, the broadcaster said in a news release Thursday. Tegna said it and Kin plan to explore content sharing in Tegna Media’s digital and linear TV properties, and sponsored content and cross-promotion. Terms weren't disclosed.
The FCC Media Bureau granted Hearst Television's request for a declaratory ruling that guests appearing on its A Matter of Fact With Fernando Espuelas don't qualify for equal time rules, because the show is a “bona fide” news program, said an order issued Thursday.
NAB filed a Freedom of Information Act request for "studies, reports, articles, presentations, empirical data, surveys and/or internet sources" considered by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and some FCC offices in the media ownership proceeding. "We filed the FOIA to determine how the FCC used a court order demanding justification of its outdated ownership rules to saddle broadcasters with even more regulation," an NAB spokesman emailed Thursday. "The FCC should explain why it blesses billion dollar mergers between AT&T/DIRECTV and Charter/Time Warner Cable while barring a local broadcaster in Poughkeepsie from buying the local newspaper." Along with materials used by Wheeler, the FOIA request seeks materials used by the Media Bureau and the Office of Strategic Planning. A draft ownership order wouldn't give broadcasters the deregulation they seek (see 1606280056).
WRAL-TV Raleigh launched an ATSC 3.0 station operating under an experimental license, licensee Capitol Broadcasting said in a news release Wednesday. The official launch was a live simulcast of a WRAL newscast and a simultaneous second channel broadcasting of a documentary shot in 4K/UHD HDR. WRAL plans to use ATSC 3.0 “to provide a deep offering of On-Demand content, access to multiple sources of video to enhance linear viewing, and a number of other 24/7 streams of TV and radio programming,” the release said. “We intend to share what we learn with the broadcast industry while utilizing ATSC 3.0’s capabilities to become better providers of news and information for our viewers,” said James Goodmon, general manager of CBC New Media. “We will be broadcasting throughout Raleigh and Durham, N.C. and performing test measurements to learn about the characteristics of this new delivery platform,” said Capitol Broadcasting Director-Engineering and Operations Peter Sockett in the release. WRAL provided a similar function for the original ATSC standard for HDTV.
The U.S Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit dismissed petitions for review of FCC repacking policy by Free Access & Broadcast Telemedia and Word of God Fellowship for not having sufficient standing. The D.C. Circuit hasn't ruled on Mako Communications' challenge of the repacking, which was heard by the three-judge panel at the same time (see 1605050052). Judges questioned the standing of FAB and Word of God during oral argument but seemed more receptive to Mako's points. Word of God isn't a party aggrieved by the repacking because it hasn't participated in the incentive auction process, said Judges Sri Srinivasan, Thomas Griffith and David Sentelle: FAB doesn't have standing because it's an investor with options in low-power TV stations, not an LPTV broadcaster itself. The law doesn't allow stockholders in companies to claim injury on behalf of the companies they own stock in -- the companies themselves must be the plaintiffs, the judges said. FAB argued that doesn't apply to it because it owns options in LPTV stations rather than stock, but the court rejected that argument. “Because Free Access has not alleged an injury that is independent of the injury suffered by the LPTV stations in which it owns options, we dismiss the petition for review,” the opinion said.
Gannett agreed to buy ReachLocal, a digital advertising services company, they said in a news release Monday. The deal, which Gannett said has an enterprise value of $156 million, was approved by the companies’ boards and is expected to be completed in Q3. It's subject to expiration of the Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting period and other customary closing conditions. Gannett CEO Bob Dickey said the acquisition adds digital marketing products to Gannett’s portfolio, plus about $320 million in annual digital revenue.