FCC Chair Could Make Life Difficult For Media Companies

President-elect Trump’s nomination of Brendan Carr as the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is bringing both hope and fear to the media industry.

For media executives, the hope comes in the promise of industry consolidation, according to The LA Times.

Companies such as Fox Television Stations, Nexstar Media Group, Tegna and Gray Media are eager to buy more TV stations to better compete against deep-pocketed tech firms that are aggressively pursuing viewers and ad dollars. Carr is expected to support revisiting the rule on ownership of TV stations.

The trepidation comes from Carr’s open criticism of broadcasters and tech firms on behalf of Trump, who is famously hostile to journalists and outlets that criticize him. Carr, a Republican nominated to the FCC during Trump’s first term in 2017 and again by President Biden in 2023, wrote the chapter on the FCC in the conservative policy blueprint Project 2025.

During the election, he jumped on social media when Vice President Kamala Harris appeared on the Nov. 2 episode of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” to point out that the network also owed an invitation to Trump under the FCC’s equal time provision.

NBC obliged, giving Trump time at the end of a NASCAR race and following “Sunday Night Football.”

Carr got the industry’s attention again last Tuesday when he told Fox News that his recommendation on the Paramount Global merger with Skydance Media would consider recent accusations from Trump’s camp that CBS News edited its “60 Minutes” interview with Harris to make her sound more coherent

“That news distortion complaint over the CBS ‘60 Minutes’ transcript is something that’s likely to arise in the context of the FCC’s review of that transaction,” Carr said.

Big media companies are bracing for the possibility that he will do Trump’s bidding when the president-elect threatens retribution against media outlets that are unfriendly to him.

Joe Rogan: CNN, MSNBC Are Delusional

Joe Rogan lambasted “delusional” left-wing media Thursday for thrusting its bias forward at the cost of its readers’ trust — which is resulting in a “hemorrhaging” of subscribers.

“I was just reading something about CNN’s ratings and MSNBC’s ratings post-election — they’ve crashed,” the “Joe Rogan Experience” host told guests Jimmy Corsetti and Dan Richards of “Debunking the Past”

“All these left-wing kooks on YouTube are hemorrhaging subscribers. Where people go, ‘You guys are out of touch, you’re not accurate, you’re delusional,'” Rogan continued.

“And people are speaking with their subscriptions and they’re speaking with their purchasing of the Washington Post and their purchasing of the New York Times.”

🇺🇸JOE ROGAN: THESE LEFT WING KOOKS ARE HEMORRHAGING SUBSCRIBERS

“I was just reading something about CNN's ratings and MSNBC's ratings post election.

They've crashed.

All these left wing kooks on YouTube are hemorrhaging subscribers, where people go, you guys are out of… pic.twitter.com/50RS9kzs0i

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) November 22, 2024

The NY Post reports the conversation kicked off when Rogan, 57, brought up Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos’ divisive October opinion piece, “The hard truth: Americans don’t trust the news media” — in which the billionaire Amazon founder declined to continue the newspaper’s legacy of endorsing a candidate for presi

The Washington Post planned to endorse Kamala Harris before Bezos stepped in, claiming political endorsements “create a perception of bias.”

The move cost the newspaper thousands of subscribers, but Rogan theorized it would have lost much more if it stuck to its progressive endorsement.

“Essentially saying that you have to take divergent viewpoints, you have to take a bunch of different perspectives, we can’t just be this left-wing echo chamber, and it’s the reason why the business is faltering,” he noted.

The New York Times is suffering from the same left-leaning affliction, Rogan argued, pointing to a recent fact-check the newspaper published earlier this week on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s claim that a popular breakfast cereal contains several artificial ingredients in the United States that are not used in other countries.

Disney Positioned To Make Streaming Work

Disney has emerged as the most promising traditional media company to pivot successfully to streaming, with a $321 million quarterly DTC profit, a $134 million profit for fiscal 2024, and 42% of its media revenue now stemming from streaming, putting it ahead of Paramount (27%) and WBD (26%) in monetizing its transition, according to The Wrap. 

Industry trends show linear TV subscriptions declining 8% quarterly, while streaming subscriber growth (+10% this quarter) and pricing strategies, particularly ad-supported tiers, are driving revenue growth, with Disney, WBD and Paramount all showing incremental DTC profitability.

Analysts highlight consolidation opportunities and scaling challenges for media companies, with Disney focusing on integrating ESPN into its streaming portfolio, WBD considering acquisitions and Netflix maintaining its dominance through global expansion and ad-tier success.

Disney squeezed out another quarterly profit in its overall direct to consumer (DTC) streaming business of $321 million, and it had a profitable fiscal year 2024 of $134 million after a dismal $2.61 billion loss in 2023. It now has 236.2 million Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ subscriptions, about 47.5 million less than industry leader Netflix.

More importantly, 42% of Disney’s total media revenue (excluding Experiences) came from streaming this quarter. That compares to Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery — the companies struggling the most to make streaming work and close the gap with Netflix — whose DTC revenues accounted for 27% and 26% of their total revenues, respectively, according to Macquarie Equity Research.

“Disney will get there,” Tim Nollen, an analyst at Macquarie, told TheWrap, echoing what other Wall Street analysts said last week. “Their pivot to streaming will enable them to overcome the declines in linear.” But for “the likes of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, it’s more questionable.”

Young Americans Are Turning Off the TV

As streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ have taken over a huge chunk of TV consumption in the United States, traditional TV is finding itself under increased pressure to defend its place as the go-to medium for entertainment, distraction and information. And while people still spend a lot of time watching live and timeshifted TV on average, that's largely due to heavy TV usage by Americans aged 65 and above, who watch roughly 10 times as much traditional TV as young adults do.

According to Nielsen, Americans aged 18 to 34 watch less than five hours of live and timeshifted TV per week. At the other end of the scale, those aged 65 and older watch more than 40 hours on average. Making this worse for the TV industry, there's a growing share of young adults who don't watch TV at all, as they get all they need from digital sources. 

According to Statista Consumer Insights, 50 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds in the U.S. say that they don't watch any traditional TV, compared to just 29 percent of 55 to 64-year-olds. That share would likely be even lower for those aged 65 and older, but they have not been surveyed in this case.

The Picture Is Bleak For The Once Mighty Cable Industry

When Comcast swallowed NBC and Universal Studios 14 years ago, the sibling cable channels USA Network, Bravo and CNBC were considered diamonds in the rough.

USA Network had gained traction with its “Blue Skies” programming strategy: sunny and upbeat TV programs infused with a buoyant energy and natural light. The cable channels were NBCUniversal’s equivalent of blue skies, routinely delivering three-quarters of the company’s profit. In 2012, cable networks threw off a robust $3.3 billion in cash flow.

Times have changed, observes The LA Times.

Comcast last week announced its plans to jettison all but one cable channel into a separate, stand-alone publicly traded company that will take shape over the next year.

“This is a reminder that the cable television network business is yesterday’s news,” analyst Craig Moffett said Wednesday in an interview. “If it feels like Comcast is shedding itself of an albatross — that’s because it is.”

For now, Comcast’s cable channels remain a viable business by generating $7 billion in annual revenue. But you have only to look at the properties the Philadelphia cable giant is keeping to see how the top brass has picked future winners and losers in a fast-changing media landscape.

Comcast will hold on to the NBC broadcast network, with its NBC News and NBC Sports units, along with its prolific Los Angeles-based Universal film and television studios, Universal Studios theme parks, local TV stations, including KNBC-TV in Los Angeles, and streaming service Peacock, which now has 36 million subscribers.

The lone cable outlet set to remain within NBCUniversal is Bravo, which has a bold brand, cultural cachet and the “Real Housewives” franchises. Company executives reviewed data that showed NBC and Bravo shows had strong viewership on Peacock, insiders said.

The spinoff company will be composed of the remainder of the cable channels, including MSNBC, CNBC, USA, Oxygen, Syfy, E! and the Golf Channel as well as digital properties, including Rotten Tomatoes, Fandango and SportsEngine.

Comcast’s move is the strongest sign yet of alarm reverberating throughout Hollywood’s traditional companies. Cable channels have long been a key economic pillar by generating billions of dollars in cable distribution fees that more than covered up the misses when big-budget movies flopped or during advertising recessions.

Comcast Spinoff Shouldn’t Warrant FCC Review

While there are many lingering questions about the implications of Comcast’s announcement that it will spin off its cable network portfolio into a publicly-traded company, its unlikely that the move to create SpinCo will warrant a review by the Federal Communications Commission, New Street Research analyst Blair Levin told The Wrap.

“As the spin-off does not involve any transfer of FCC licenses, there is no FCC review,” Levin wrote in a research note to clients. He also pointed out that there shouldn’t be any antitrust issues, given that the move does not involve any combination that would “increase horizontal or vertical concentration.”

But he warned the “X factor” is whether Donald Trump, who recently won a second term in the White House, would ask any government officials to “slow-down or otherwise interfere with the transaction, which involves MSNBC—a major Trump nemesis—until Trump receives some sort of concession for how MSNBC covers news in the future.”

Trump has selected Brendan Carr, the author of the FCC section in Project 2025 and the senior Republican on the FCC, to serve as the agency’s new chairman.

Levin expects a Carr-led FCC to revise current broadcast ownership rules that enable more local and potentially national consolidation, which will create new opportunities for Comcast and NBCUniversal to participate in with its spin-off.

Nearly 80M Expected to Travel Over Thanksgiving

AAA projects 79.9 million travelers will head 50 miles or more from home over the Thanksgiving holiday travel period*. For the first time, AAA’s forecast includes the Tuesday before and the Monday after Thanksgiving Day to better capture the flow of holiday travelers. This year’s projection of nearly 80 million travelers is an increase of 1.7 million people compared to last year and 2 million more than in 2019.

“Thanksgiving is the busiest holiday for travel, and this year we’re expecting to set new records across the board, from driving to flying and cruising,” said Stacey Barber, Vice President of AAA Travel. “Americans reconnect with family and friends over Thanksgiving, and travel is a big part of that. AAA continues to see travel demand soar post-pandemic with our members looking for new adventures and memorable vacations.” 

Thanksgiving Travelers By Mode   

By Car: AAA projects a record 71.7 million people will travel by car over Thanksgiving – that’s an additional 1.3 million travelers on the road compared to last year. This year’s number also surpasses pre-pandemic numbers when 70.6 million people drove to their Thanksgiving destinations in 2019. 

Gas prices are lower this Thanksgiving season compared to 2023. The national average last Thanksgiving Day was $3.26. Falling oil prices this autumn may help push the national average below $3 a gallon for the first time since 2021, and that could happen before drivers hit the road for Thanksgiving. Regionally, drivers east of the Rockies will find gas between $2.25 to $2.50 a gallon in more than a dozen states. 

AAA car rental partner Hertz says Atlanta, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Oahu, Orlando, and Phoenix are the cities displaying the highest rental demand for the Thanksgiving holiday. The busiest car pick-up day is expected to be the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and the busiest rental return days will be the Monday and Tuesday after the holiday.  

By Air: Thanksgiving air travel is also expected to set a new record. AAA projects 5.84 million people will fly domestically this holiday. That’s an increase of 2% compared to last year and a nearly 11% increase over 2019.  According to AAA booking data, air travelers are paying 3% more for domestic Thanksgiving flights this year, while the number of flight bookings is similar to last year. International flight bookings are up 23% compared to last Thanksgiving, in part because the cost to fly internationally is down 5%.  

By Other Modes: Nearly 2.3 million people are expected to travel by other modes of transportation, including buses, cruises, and trains. This category is seeing an increase of almost 9% compared to last year and an 18% jump over 2019, in large part due to the popularity of cruising. The demand for cruises has been red-hot post-pandemic. Domestic and international cruise bookings are up 20% compared to last Thanksgiving.

R.I.P.: Chuck Woolery, Game Show Host

Chuck Woolery, the affable, smooth-talking game show host of “Wheel of Fortune,” “Love Connection” and “Scrabble” who later became a right-wing podcaster, skewering liberals and accusing the government of lying about COVID-19, has died. He was 83 reports CNN.

Mark Young, Woolery’s podcast co-host and friend, said in an email early Sunday that Woolery died at his home in Texas with his wife, Kristen, present. “Chuck was a dear friend and brother and a tremendous man of faith, life will not be the same without him,” Young wrote.

Woolery, with his matinee idol looks, coiffed hair and ease with witty banter, was inducted into the American TV Game Show Hall of Fame in 2007 and earned a daytime Emmy nomination in 1978.

In early 1976, Woolery began hosting Wheel of Fortune at the suggestion of creator Merv Griffin, who had seen Woolery sing on The Tonight Show. He hosted in 1978, and was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Host or Hostess in a Game or Audience Participation Show.

After exiting in a salary dispute, Woolery was in demand as a guest show hosted and segued in the hosting chair to Love Connection (1983-94), The Big Spin (1985), Scrabble (1984-90, 1993), The Dating Game (1997-99), Greed (1999-2000), and Lingo (2002-07). He also co-hosted the talkers Home & Family on former The Family Channel from 1996-98, and short-lived The Chuck Woolery Show in 1991.

“Love Connection” — long before the dawn of dating apps — had a premise that featured either a single man or single woman who would watch audition tapes of three potential mates and then pick one for a date.

A couple of weeks after the date, the guest would sit with Woolery in front of a studio audience and tell everybody about the date. The audience would vote on the three contestants, and if the audience agreed with the guest’s choice, “Love Connection” would offer to pay for a second date.

Other career highlights included hosting the shows “Lingo,” “Greed” and “The Chuck Woolery Show,” as well as hosting the short-lived syndicated revival of “The Dating Game” from 1998 to 2000 and an ill-fated 1991 talk show. In 1992, he played himself in two episodes of TV’s “Melrose Place.”

R.I.P.: Alice Brock, Restaurant Owner Made Famous by a Song

Alice Brock, whose eatery in western Massachusetts was immortalized as the place where “you can get anything you want” in Arlo Guthrie’s 1967 antiwar song “Alice’s Restaurant,” died on Thursday in Wellfleet, Mass. — just a week before Thanksgiving, the holiday during which the rambling story at the center of the song takes place. She was 83, according to The NY Times.

Viki Merrick, a longtime friend, said she died in a hospice from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Ever since Guthrie released the song, officially called “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” in 1967, it has been a staple of classic-rock stations every late November, not to mention car trip singalongs on the way to visit family for Thanksgiving dinner.

Brock’s restaurant, the Back Room, does not feature much in the song itself. Over the course of a little more than 18 minutes, Mr. Guthrie — doing more talking than singing — recounts a visit that he and a friend, Rick Robbins, paid to Ms. Brock and her husband, Ray Brock, for Thanksgiving dinner.

A shaggy-dog story ensues: Mr. Guthrie and Mr. Robbins take trash to the city dump, but, finding it closed, leave it in a ravine instead. The next morning, the police arrest them for littering, and Ms. Brock has to bail them out.

That night she cooks them all a big meal, and the following day they appear in court, where the judge fines them $50. Later, Mr. Guthrie is ordered to an Army induction center, where he is able to avoid the draft because of his criminal record.

Over the last decade, Ms. Brock struggled with financial and health issues, and a friend set up a GoFundMe site for her — a situation highlighted in a 2020 feature on the NPR program “Morning Edition.” Fans of the song quickly opened their wallets, and within a few days they had raised more than  $170,000.

Radio History: Nov 25

Norman Tokar

➦In 1919...Writer, producer Norman Tokar born (Died from a heart attack at age 59 – April 6, 1979). He directed many of the early episodes of Leave it to Beaver, and found his greatest success directing over a dozen films for Walt Disney Productions, spanning the 1950s to the 1970s.

After a career as an actor on Broadway in the early 1940s, Tokar moved into radio, most notably The Aldrich Family, where he played Henry Aldrich's friend Willie at the microphone and wrote several episodes as well. Tokar then went into television direction on such sitcoms as The Bob Cummings Show and The Donna Reed Show, and the drama Naked City.

In the early 1960s, Tokar’s success working with the juvenile actors on 93 episodes of the TV sitcom Leave it to Beaver encouraged Walt Disney to hire him to direct family features for his studio, which frequently used children in key roles.

WJAX mics at March 1936 news event.
Future FL Gov. Warren Fuller is third person from the right

➦In 1925...City of Jacksonville FL launched a broadcast station. The city appropriated $19,960 to put the station on the air and operate it through 1926. The station manager/engineer, John T. Hopkins was paid $250 a month and his assistant, James Brock made $165. The station, WJAX, made its first broadcast on Thanksgiving 1925 operating on 890 Kc. with 1000 watts using an antenna wire strung between two large tapered towers. WJAX shifted to 880 Kc. in 1928 and 900 Kc. in 1930.(Jacksonville radio historian Billy Williams).   Today, the station is WFXJ, branded as Sports Radio 930 AM and is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc.

➦In 1944...The FBI in Peace & War began a 14-year run on CBS Radio. 

➦In 1949..."Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" first appeared on the hit music charts. The song was written by Johnny Marks based on the 1939 story Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer published by the Montgomery Ward Company.

In 1939 Marks's brother-in-law, Robert L. May, created the character Rudolph as an assignment for Montgomery Ward and Marks decided to adapt the story of Rudolph into a song.

The song was first sung by crooner Harry Brannon on New York City radio in early November 1949, before Gene Autry's recording hit No. 1 in the U.S. charts during Christmas 1949. The song was suggested as a "B" side for a record Autry was making. Autry rejected the song. His wife convinced him to use it.

Autry's version of the song also holds the distinction of being the only chart-topping hit to fall completely off the chart after reaching No. 1. The official date of its No. 1 status was for the week ending January 7, 1950, making it the first No. 1 song of the 1950s.

Autry‘s rendition is the most popular, 80 different versions of the song have been recorded, with nearly 20,000,000 copies sold.

➦In 1960...CBS radio axed five daytime serials from the airwaves, including The Second Mrs. Burton (after 14 years), Whispering Streets, Young Dr Malone & Right to Happiness (both after 21 years) and Ma Perkins (after 27 wonderful years.)