Nexstar finished negotiating terms to buy Media General, but “there can be no assurance that any transaction with Media General will result” because the Meredith/Media General agreement hasn't been terminated, said Nexstar and Media General in news releases Thursday. Under the original agreement with Meredith, Media General can't sign a deal with Nexstar until the Meredith pact is terminated, Media General said. Media General has made several proposals to Meredith to terminate the Meredith agreement, and “to date, Meredith has been unwilling to accept these offers,” Media General said: If Meredith doesn't agree to terminate the deal, Media General will hold a shareholder meeting on the Meredith transaction “as soon as possible.” If Media General shareholders reject the deal, the agreement with Meredith allows Media General to terminate the Meredith deal, Media General said. Under the Nexstar proposal, Nexstar would acquire Media General for $10.55 per share in cash, shares of Nexstar stock and a “contingent value right” for cash proceeds from the sale of Media General spectrum in the incentive auction. Nexstar said it intends to divest the TV stations necessary to obtain FCC regulatory approval. Meredith put forth a new proposal for a “merger of equals” between Meredith and Media General, which would allow that deal to “continue along the current regulatory approval timeline,” Meredith said in a news release. Nexstar and Media General won't be able to file their deal with the FCC before the Jan. 12 reverse auction quiet period, Meredith said. “Thus, a Nexstar-Media General combination could not be completed for at least a year, if not longer, significantly delaying any financial benefit to Media General shareholders, and exposing the transaction to potential market and industry risks.”

The FCC Enforcement Bureau signed a $540,000 consent decree with Cumulus Media for the latter's failure to properly identify the sponsor of a radio ad, the commission said in a news release Thursday. WOZQ Dover, New Hampshire, broadcast 178 ads in 2011 supporting a $1 billion hydroelectric energy project without identifying the sponsor, which was Northern Pass Transmission, a company with a financial interest in the project, the FCC said. “This is the largest payment in FCC history for a single-station violation of the Commission’s sponsorship identification laws,” the release said. “While failure to disclose these identities generally misleads the public, it is particularly concerning when consumers are duped into supporting controversial environmental projects,” said Enforcement Bureau Chief Travis LeBlanc in the release. Under the settlement terms, Cumulus Media Inc. subsidiaries Cumulus Radio Corporation and Radio License Holding CBC will pay the penalty and enter into “a robust compliance plan governing 195 stations across the country,” the release said. The plan includes a compliance officer, enhanced operating procedures, employee training on sponsorship identification, and a hotline for reporting violations, the release said.

All Tegna TV stations will begin using CrowdTangle’s social analytics platform to monitor social media, the broadcaster said in a news release Wednesday. “Stations will be able to use CrowdTangle to help track local and national breaking news and major events as well as help journalists tell stories and impact viewers,” it said. Tegna Media has been using CrowdTangle in some markets since August, Tegna said.

LG is demonstrating reception on the CES floor of live, over-the-air 4K Ultra HD broadcasts in high dynamic range using the new ATSC 3.0 candidate standard, the company said Wednesday. The “landmark broadcast” over channel 18 is emanating from the transmitter of KHMP Las Vegas on Nevada’s Black Mountain, LG said. KHMP is owned and operated by DNV Spectrum Holdings, LG said.

DTS will demo HD Radio at its CES booth, the first major demo of the technology since DTS acquired iBiquity (see 1510070014) last year. KUNV(FM) Las Vegas will broadcast special content via HD Radio on its HD2 channel during CES, said DTS, which will have several Acura RDX vehicles tuned to the broadcast. New car models -- the Cadillac CT6, Honda Civic, Kia Rio, Lexus RX, Nissan Leaf, Toyota Land Cruiser and Toyota Prius -- will have HD Radio receivers, said DTS in a Monday news release.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected TV station licensee Lawrence Behr's appeal of an FCC order denying his request for a hearing over the agency's denial of his application for a waiver of rules. Behr asked the FCC in 2003 for a multiyear waiver of its requirement that he build a base station within 12 months, said the court's judgment. When the FCC denied his waiver, Behr argued that because the waiver request was physically attached to an application to modify his license, FCC rules required that he be granted a hearing, but the commission said the two were separate documents. The D.C. Circuit decided the appeal doesn't require a published opinion, the judgment said.

NAB Labs invested in Baltimore-based data startup Yet Analytics, NAB said in a news release Monday. “Yet Analytics provides cutting-edge platforms for the multi-source collection and analysis of human and machine performance data within Fortune 500 companies and other large organizations.” The company uses open source tech that was originally developed by the Department of Defense, said NAB. “The data collection and analysis tools that Yet Analytics has developed offer a range of applications that could provide solutions for broadcasters," said NAB Chief Technology Officer Sam Matheny.

ATSC issued requests for proposals for an ATSC 3.0 “consumer showcase” and ATSC 3.0 “workflow demonstrations” for the NAB Show in April, ATSC said Monday in the January issue of its monthly newsletter, The Standard. The consumer showcase will be in the lobby area in the upper level of the Las Vegas Convention Center's South Hall. Managed jointly by ATSC, CTA and NAB, the showcase will emphasize products and technologies that highlight “the consumer side of ATSC 3.0,” including 4K reception, immersive audio and advanced emergency alerting, it said. The workflow demonstrations, to be in a special area of the NAB Futures Park pavilion at the east end of the Upper South Hall, will “highlight new equipment that will be required at the broadcast station to offer the consumer access to the advanced features enabled by ATSC 3.0,” it said. ATSC also is “exploring the feasibility of providing a live ATSC 3.0 link” from the workflow demonstrations to the consumer showcase, it said.

The “Future of Cinema” technical conference at April’s NAB Show will have a “refocused” theme, “with an emphasis on the work and inspiration of the industry's newest generation of filmmakers,” said conference producer Society of Motion Picture and TV Engineers Monday. The conference has gone by a series of different names in past years, most recently as the Technology Summit on Cinema event on days one and two of the NAB Show. For 2016, the Future of Cinema conference will be April 16-17 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, SMPTE said. The conference will include sessions on the “creative use” of high dynamic range and HDR mastering and delivery to the home, among other topics, SMPTE said.

No other separately owned TV station operates on a sub-channel that corresponds to the major channel of a competing TV station, Meredith and CBS said in an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 14-150 on PMCM's channel request. The Media Bureau assigned PMCM's WJLP Middletown Township, New Jersey, to virtual channel 33, though PMCM is seeking to be assigned virtual channel 3.10. PMCM has said it needs 3.10 because viewers’ TVs don’t tune to the Media Bureau-assigned channel when “33” is entered on a remote. That’s “a problem that does not exist for these viewers if they tune ‘33.1,’” CBS and Meredith said. “Of all the [program and system information protocol] channels potentially available for WJLP, PMCM still insists on the one channel that the Media Bureau expressly has determined it cannot have.”