NEW YORK—Nielsen and Meredith Corporation have announced a multi-year renewal agreement for Nielsen Local TV ratings. 

Meredith's Local Media Group includes 17 television stations reaching 11 percent of U.S. households.

Under the agreement Nielsen will provide all of Meredith’s local stations with a range of audience measurement and analytical services, including Nielsen Scarborough. 

Nielsen Scarborough will provide in-depth consumer behavior data on more than 2,000 categories about local shopping, product purchasing, lifestyle and media usage to give Meredith a complete view of the local market consumer. 

"We are thrilled to continue our longstanding relationship with Meredith Broadcast Group," said Catherine Herkovic, managing director and executive vice president of Nielsen Local TV. "Meredith continues to be a leader for local advertisers in search of innovative solutions for reaching key audiences. Our alliance with Meredith will leverage Nielsen's unique suite of measurement services to establish a cross-platform currency to further its commercial strategies. We are committed to working actively with Meredith to ensure that the company has the tools it needs to achieve its business objectives and deliver value and results to advertisers."

Nielsen's Local TV measurement includes traditional cable, satellite and over-the-air (OTA) viewers, as well as the fast-growing number of viewers who access linear streams of broadcast content through virtual providers. Nielsen reports viewing across devices and provides direct persons measurement, inclusive of incremental out-of-home (OOH) audiences in select markets via Nielsen's proprietary Portable People Meter (PPM).

UPDATED 9:45 a.m.

ATLANTA—Gray Television has announced that it is acquiring Meredith Corp.’s all outstanding shares of Meredith Corporation, which includes all of its broadcast stations, for $2.7 billion.

Gray TV is acquiring Meredith's Local Media Group, consisting of 17 TV stations in 12 markets. Meredith will maintain ownership of its National Media Group, which includes a portfolio of magazines as well as digital and marketing assets.

The TV stations that will be transferring over to Gray TV include:

• WGCL (CBS)/WPCH (Independent), Atlanta
• KPHO (CBS)/KTVK (Independent), Phoenix
• KPTV (FOX)/KPDX (MyNetwork), Portland, Ore.
• KMOV (CBS), St. Louis
• WSMV (NBC), Nashville, Tenn.
• WFSB (CBS), Hartford-New Haven, Conn.
• KCTV (CBS)/KSMO (MyNetwork), Kansas City, Mo.
• WHNS (FOX), Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C.
• KVVU (FOX), Las Vegas
• WALA (FOX), Mobile, Ala.
• WNEM (CBS), Flint-Saginaw, Mich.
• WGGB (ABC & FOX)/WSHM-LD (CBS), Springfield, Mass.

Gray TV currently operates in one of these markets, Flint-Saginaw, Mich. This will require Gray TV to divest the market's ABC affiliate, WJRT-TV, to an independent third party by the closing of the acquisition. Gray TV estimates that the deal will close in the fourth quarter 2021.

With the deal, Gray TV says that it will become the second largest TV broadcaster in the country, serving 113 markets and reaching approximately 36% of U.S. TV households.

"We are very excited to acquire Meredith’s excellent television stations, and we look forward to welcoming its employees into the Gray family. Moreover, Gray’s Board and shareholders are deeply appreciative of the tireless efforts of our team led by Kevin Latek and Jim Ryan on this transaction and our other recently announced significant transactions. Building on our successes throughout 2020 and just the first few months of 2021, Gray Television clearly has an even stronger and brighter future than ever," said Hilton H. Howell, executive chairman and CEO of Gray TV.  

Gray TV has made other recent acquisitions, purchasing Quincy Media in February, and more recently divesting some of the Quincy Media stations to Allen Media.

DES MOINES, Iowa—Meredith Corp. has promoted both Dana Neves and Kevin James to Local Media Group senior vice president roles. Both Neves and James will continue to report to Local Media Group President Patrick McCreery. McCreery said he was thrilled to elevate them both to the new roles.

Neves will oversee all labor relations activities for the Local Media Group and continue to serve as General Manager at WFSB, Meredith's CBS affiliate serving Hartford/New Haven, Conn. She started her career at Meredith and WFSB nearly 25 years ago as an intern and worked her way up through the newsroom ranks as an assignment manager, managing editor and assistant news director. She was named news director in 2006 and promoted to vice president/general manager in 2018.

James will oversee revenue operations for Meredith's group of 17 television stations and continue in his role as general manager at KTVK 3TV and KPHO CBS5, Meredith's duopoly in Phoenix, Ariz. James joined Meredith as the local sales manager at KPHO in 2005 and was promoted to general sales manager at Meredith's Fox affiliate in Las Vegas, KVVU-TV, in 2013. He returned to Phoenix in 2017 as the director of sales at CBS5 and 3TV before being promoted to vice president/general manager in 2018.

Meredith's Local Media Group includes 17 television stations reaching 11 percent of U.S. households. Meredith's portfolio is concentrated in large, fast-growing markets, with seven stations in the nation's Top 25 and 13 in Top 50 markets, according to the company.

DES MOINES, Iowa—With the importance of broadcasters being continuously expressed during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Meredith Local Media Group is prepared to serve their communities with the latest news and information—COVID-19-related and beyond—throughout the situation.

Meredith says that all 17 of its stations across all of its markets remain open and operational. In the event that a station had to close, Meredith would keep all markets on the air and online via its hubs in Phoenix and Atlanta. Stations, meanwhile, have contingency plans, including producing news broadcasts from alternate locations.

“Our stations are taking a number of preventative measures to do our part in flattening the curve, including asking all reporters, photographers and multimedia journalists to work remotely when possible; anchors staying at least six feet apart during newscasts and using several locations on the news set and in the newsrooms; and advising all other employees not critical to news production to work from home,” said Patrick McCreery, Local Media Group president.

Meredith is also providing local coronavirus updates every hour via mobile news apps and social channels. Special newscasts are also being added in some cases to fill previous network programming that has been cancelled.

“Our number one priority is the health and safety of our employees, and we also believe it is of the utmost importance to continue to provide the public with high-quality journalism they can trust during this time,” said McCreery.

DES MOINES, Iowa—Dish customers in 12 markets will once again have access to Meredith-owned local TV stations as the two sides have come to terms on a multi-year retransmission consent agreement.

The stations, which had been blacked out since July, cover markets that include Atlanta, Phoenix, St. Louis and Nashville.

“We are pleased that Dish customers are again able to watch the award-winning news and popular sports and entertainment programming that are a hallmark of Meredith’s television group,” said Patrick McCreery, Meredith Local Media Group president. “We thank our viewers for their patience as we worked with Dish to reach this new agreement.”

Meredith Local Media Group’s 17 TV stations reach 11% of U.S. households, with seven stations in top 25 markets and 13 in top 50.

WASHINGTON – Patrick McCreery, president of the Meredith Local Media Group, has been appointed to the NAB Television Board of Directors by Television Board Chairman Jordan Wertlieb, effective immediately. McCreery assumes the board seat previously occupied by Paul Karpowicz, who retired from Meredith at the end of June.

McCreery served as Meredith's vice president of News and Marketing from 2014 until this past January, when he was promoted to executive vice president of Operations. As president, he oversees Meredith’s 17 local TV stations that reach more than 11 percent of U.S. households. McCreery also oversees MNI Targeted Media, which joined Meredith’s Local Media Group after the acquisition of Time Inc.

McCreery started at Meredith in 2003 as executive producer, Special Projects at KPHO-TV in Phoenix. He then spent almost 12 years at the company's Portland-based KPTV-TV/KPDX-TV, including six years as vice president & general manager. Earlier in his career, McCreery worked at stations in San Francisco, Toledo and Columbus. 

McCreery currently serves on the CBS Affiliate Board and the Board of the Television Operators Caucus. He served on the Board of the Oregon Association of Broadcasters for six years. 

McCreery is a graduate of The Ohio State University with a bachelor’s degree in Journalism.

PHOENIX — Five broadcast technology vendors, including Dielectric, Enensys, GatesAir, Harmonic and Triveni Digital, will help television broadcasters in Phoenix make the Pearl TV-led ATSC 3.0 Model Market Initiative a reality.

Stations owned by E.W. Scripps Co., Fox Television Stations, Meredith Local Media Group, Nexstar Media Group, Tegna, Telemundo Station Group and Univision are taking part in the initiative, which will test advanced business models made possible by Next Gen TV.

The initiative also will demonstrate that it is possible to transition to Next-Gen TV while maintaining legacy ATSC 1.0 DTV service.

“We are delighted to announce the first group of technology suppliers who will help make the Phoenix model market a reality,” said Pearl TV Managing Director Anne Schelle in a press release announcing the participation of the companies. “This is just [the] first round of key broadcast equipment vendors who are now at work to create an over-the-air ATSC 3.0 deployment.”

[Read: 2018 NAB Show Marks Next Gen TV’s Arrival]

The Phoenix model market will provide an open test bed for all of the stakeholders in the TV ecosystem, according to a press announcement. Several objectives are planned for the initiative, including: confirmation of basic TV service parameters and performance; determining the appeal of HDR and immersive audio to consumers; assessing TV application features and implementation requirements; testing interactive and addressable ad functionality; and determining consumer device and service appeal, the announcement said.

The initial technology deployment supporting the initiative includes:

• Dielectric UT8D7F-3K filter, a 3 kW low-loss, high-efficiency, eight-pole, UHF bandpass filter;
• Enensys ATSCheduler, an ATSC 3.0 broadcast gateway that encapsulated MMT and ROUTE IP streams into an ATSC 3.0 multiplex, allocating data to different sub-frame and physical layer pipes and managing SFN synchronization;
• GatesAir Maxiva AXTE-3 UHF air-cooled TV transmitter for ATSC 3.0 transmission in Phoenix;
• Harmonic Electra X ATSC 3.0 encoding and statistical multiplexer media processor to deliver multiple HEVC programs over DASH;
• Triveni Digital GuideBuilder XM signaling, announcement and transport generator and StreamScope XM advanced monitor and analysis system, both part of the company’s Broadcast Services Management Platform.

All participating vendors will be exhibiting at the 2018 NAB Show, April 7–12, in Las Vegas. Dielectric will be in booth C2613; Enensys will be in booth SU6521; GatesAir will be in booth N3703; Harmonic will be in booth SU610; and Triveni Digital will be in booth N1427.

For a comprehensive list of TV Technology’s ATSC 3.0 coverage, see our ATSC3 silo.