Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Open Mike
Stop Fighting The Phone And Make It TV’s Return Path
Already have an account? Sign in
Speaking The Same Language: Broadcast & IT’s Trust Problem
Broadcast facilities increasingly run on the same network infrastructure as the rest of the enterprise, putting broadcast engineers and IT teams in closer contact but without always sharing an understanding of each other’s priorities. Consider a common scenario: A device needs to move video traffic on an isolated production network, exchange control data with a separate segment and reach the public internet for updates.
Breaking News To Millions: Anytime, Anywhere, On Your Own
It’s easy to hide behind a station’s call letters. After all, the station holds the prestige and built in audience, right? At least it used to. But we as journalists aren’t giving ourselves and the skills and personal brands we’ve built, enough credit. I spent two decades building a brand as a major market investigative reporter and anchor, most recently in Atlanta and Detroit.
The AI Roadmap For Local Broadcasters: Six Takeaways For Strategic Transformation
The local broadcast industry is undergoing a fundamental transition, shifting from a period of “playing with AI” to a rigorous era of operationalizing it. For the past year, the Local Media Association Broadcast Transformation AI Lab has sought to catalyze this shift.
RIFed over 50? How to navigate and plan a workforce reentry
Company RIFs are impacting the 50+s demographic extremely hard. They are often targeted because many are higher-earning managers with fewer working years left than younger employees. Being RIFed at this career point can create intense uneasiness and requires a different approach to the situation than younger people in two key areas: separation agreement negotiations and the job search strategy.
A Hybrid Approach To The Move From C-Band
Broadcast distribution has depended on satellite connectivity for decades because it can deliver content reliably and cost effectively to hundreds or thousands of affiliates. In the U.S., the reallocation of a portion of the C-band spectrum for 5G and other cellular services has reduced the spectrum available for satellite services and prompted broadcasters to consider alternatives.
Paths Of Least Resistance: What’s Next In The C-Band Clearing?
The C-band debate is entering a new phase. Broadcasters are waiting for further clarity on their options for moving out of the spectrum, while satellite operators accelerate their Ku-band design and procurement process and more distribution vendors put forward satellite-to-IP propositions. It’s becoming a crowded conversation, and one that’ll dominate plenty of meeting agendas at IBC 2026 in Amsterdam, Sept. 11-14.
It’s Time For TV Advertising To Catch Up With Changing Viewer Behavior
Viewers no longer rely on one platform or television provider, moving between broadcast television, streaming services and social media depending on what they want to watch and where they are. As connected TVs become a major source of video entertainment in mature markets and more live sports move to streaming platforms, audiences have greater control over how they build their viewing experience.
Helping Veterans Find Their Next Mission In Broadcasting
Anyone who has worked in live television knows the value of having the right people beside you when something goes wrong. You need people who stay focused, work as a team and get the job done. Those are skills U.S. military veterans already have. What they may not have yet is the broadcast experience to put those skills to work in our industry. That’s where Veterans TV comes in.
Every Ad Campaign Is Now Local
For decades, national advertising strategies were built around a simple assumption: scale first, relevance second. The U.S. population was treated as a single audience that could be efficiently reached through broad messaging, standardized creative and centralized buying. That approach made sense in a television-centric world, where viewers largely watched the same content at the same time and outcomes could be inferred from long-established planning models. But the U.S. is not one market.
Educate The Advertiser And Boost Local TV Sales
Who’s really winning with broadcast television advertising? Everyone, when TV is used properly. I hear criticism of broadcasting almost daily and it could almost become a self-fulfilling prophecy if I listened to it all. However, it seems to me that the reality is that broadcasters hold all the cards and they can play to win or just simply fold. Large, live, local audiences of adults over age 50 is the strong playing card for television leadership.
What The Hiring Market Knows About Local Television
I’ve spent the last 15 years recruiting television executives, and one thing I’ve learned is that the hiring market often sees change before the rest of the industry does. It isn’t because recruiters are better at predicting the future. We’re not. It’s because we’re constantly talking to the people making decisions and the people deciding whether they still believe in those decisions. Those conversations often shift months before the headlines do.
What AI means for the local media tech stack
Local media organizations have been building their technology stacks for years. And as CTV, search, social and other services have become part of the business, they've built even more. Organizations today have no shortage of technology. However, information is distributed across workflows that were added one-by-one. Because of this, advertising's next challenge may have less to do with adding more new tools than with improving the way work moves between them.
Video’s Summer Of Vertical Is Now. Here’s What It Means For TV
It’s the Summer of Vertical for video, as mobile-first is the mandate. We are 90 days into Netflix’s launch of “Clips,” and fully into an industry-wide microdrama frenzy. A lesson is emerging: Vertical isn’t a format — it’s a behavior. And those who cannot remember Quibi are condemned to repeat it. The Pollinators (what I call the New Marketers: TikTok, YT shorts, IG Reels) redrew the aspect ratio for a generation.
Linear TV’s Performance Renaissance: From Mass Reach To Verified Results
Every year the industry buries linear television. Every year the budgets dig it back up. Linear isn’t dying. It’s being repriced around proof. The question that defines a television buy has already changed. For most of the medium’s history, buyers asked how many people might see a spot. Now they ask what those people did after they saw it. That is the whole shift. For decades, linear sold one thing: the opportunity to see.
What The Fox-Roku Deal Reveals About Media’s Consolidation Era
Fox is paying $22 billion for Roku, and most coverage frames it as a content deal. It isn’t. The reality is that Roku owns almost no content of its own — just a modest slate built on a Quibi catalog picked up for pocket change in 2021. What Fox actually bought is data — first-party relationships with more than 100 million streaming households and the reach to act on them. Look past this one deal and the same move is happening industry-wide, under different names.
Local TV Has An Overlooked Fix For The Midterm Inventory Crunch
Every election cycle, the same story plays out in station sales meetings. Political ad dollars flood in, commercial pods tighten and somewhere down the log a local advertiser gets bumped for a candidate spot they didn’t see coming. The station books the revenue. The client relationship takes the hit. Sales teams treat this as an unavoidable cost of doing business during election season. It isn’t. It’s a packaging problem, and it has a straightforward fix that most stations still aren’t using.
TV’s Next Hit Could Be Lost In The Cash Flow Gap
As the television industry celebrates this year’s Emmy nominees, the spotlight is on the talent and productions that are captivating audiences. But this Emmy season tells two stories. The first highlights the ongoing contribution of independent production companies, with acclaimed programs such as Beef (A24) and Remarkably Bright Creatures (Anonymous Content) earning recognition across major categories. The second takes place far from the red carpet.
Live Sports Production Yields Broader Industry Lessons
Live sports have always carried a different set of expectations than other forms of broadcast or streaming. Viewers want to experience the event as it happens. That standard is becoming harder to meet as audiences move across streaming platforms, mobile devices, social feeds and second screens where spoilers and reactions travel almost instantly. For broadcasters, leagues, venues, connectivity providers and production teams, the pressure is no longer limited to content alone.
The Streaming Wars Are Becoming An Operations War
For years, streaming strategy was measured by subscriber growth: how many users signed up, how many markets launched and how many platforms carried the content. That era created enormous global reach, but it also made the operating environment behind the scenes far more complex. Now, as the industry shifts toward profitability, the next phase of competition will depend on how efficiently media companies manage everything that happens after content is made.
The Case For Supply-Side Tracking
For years, digital advertising in media relied on a simple assumption: if a reader, viewer or app user interacted with content, it is enough to measure the performance and further monetize the audience. That assumption is no longer safe. Ad blockers, browser privacy updates, cookie limits and stricter data protection rules have made traditional client-side tracking less reliable. For media companies, the issue is not only technical.
Hybrid Production Isn’t A Phase. It’s The New Permanent
The broadcast industry loves a reassuring narrative. The story we told ourselves for the better part of a decade was that traditional infrastructure would lead to software-defined, cloud-based workflows and the transition would be, maybe not easy, but at least linear. We’d move from one model to the other, the old making way for the new. What broadcasters are actually living through is something messier and more demanding: the permanent coexistence of both worlds. We see this every day.
When Streaming Platforms Innovate, Viewers And Local News Win
The streaming marketplace — and the regulatory framework that has allowed it to flourish — gives Americans unprecedented viewing options. Today, streaming platforms provide options — specialized sporting events, niche comedy programs and foreign dramas — that would have been unimaginable just one generation ago. We almost take it for granted. Viewers benefit from the unprecedented choice in programming and flexibility in when and where they watch content.
Why Monitor Calibration Matters More Than Ever
In professional video, a monitor is more than a screen. It is a decision-making tool. Directors, producers, engineers, colorists and camera teams rely on it to judge exposure, color, consistency and overall image quality. If the monitor is inaccurate, every decision based on it becomes suspect. Calibration remains vital even as display technology advances.
The Nexstar-Tegna Merger Won’t Save Local Television. Journalists Will
Perry Sook, chairman and CEO of Nexstar Media Group, recently argued that the proposed Nexstar-Tegna merger is essential to preserving local television and local journalism. He warned that without regulatory reform and increased scale; local broadcasters could follow newspapers into decline. He’s right about one thing: Local television is in trouble. He’s wrong about why. The challenge facing local television is not ownership rules.
Why Broadcasters Belong In America’s Resilience Future
The debate over ATSC 3.0 and 5G broadcast is increasingly being framed as a battle between broadcasters and wireless providers. That’s the wrong debate. The real question facing policymakers is far more important: What communications infrastructure will the country depend on when everything else fails? For decades, broadcasters have defended spectrum allocations by emphasizing television service.
Local Media’s Competitive Advantage Is Accountability
Local media loses when it forgets what made it valuable in the first place. Big Tech has scale, automation and endless ways to package performance. What it lacks is a clear explanation of how advertising actually works across a local market. That distinction matters more now than ever. Today’s advertisers are overwhelmed by data. Every platform reports success. Every dashboard shows lift. Every system claims credit. But few of us trust those answers to the most important question: What drove outcomes?
Broadcast Prepares For Its Post-Satellite Future
Satellite has supported U.S. broadcast distribution for so long that it has often been treated as a fixed infrastructure. It has carried national feeds, enabled regional sports distribution and provided predictability that shaped how broadcasters built their operations. That assumption is being wholly reconsidered as the July 2027 Upper C-Band auction approaches, with up to 180 MHz anticipated for reallocation. Satellite replacement dominated the conversation at the NAB Show last month.
The FCC Lacks Authority To Change The TV Parental Guidelines
In the hubbub over the FCC’s latest effort to punish broadcasters for content that the president doesn’t like — and thus to persuade other broadcasters to steer away from content that would bother the president or the FCC’s chairman — you may have missed an April 22 order from the Media Bureau asking for comments on changing the TV Parental Guidelines.
Why Disaster Recovery Is Now Mission-Critical For Live Streaming
A packed stadium holds its breath while millions watch from home, mobile phones in hand, waiting for kickoff. In that moment, the expectation is simple: The stream works. When it doesn’t, even briefly, the consequences are immediate. Viewers drop off, complaints surface across social media and revenue is lost, sometimes straining relationships with rights holders and exposing operational weaknesses.
WRTV Indianapolis Sets New Morning Team & Expanded Newscast
Circle City Broadcasting’s WRTV Indianapolis will debut a new morning news team and expand its AM LIVE programming beginning May 4. The station’s morning newscast, which previously aired Monday-Friday from 5 to 7 a.m. as a hybrid live and recorded broadcast, will transition to a fully live three-hour block airing from 4 to 7 a.m. DuJuan McCoy, Circle City Broadcasting owner-president-CEO, said Tuesday that the expansion is part of a broader investment in the station.
Programmatic Isn’t Defined by Delivery. Workflow & Supply Access Are What Matter
In his TVNewsCheck column earlier this week, Tom Sly raised an important and thoughtful point: The industry should avoid overstatement and strive for clarity as television evolves. On that, we agree. However, his conclusion that linear TV is not yet programmatic because it lacks impression-level delivery rests on a definition that is both too narrow and too rooted in digital precedent.
An Open Letter: FCC’s Carr Is Hiding The Ball From The Courts
Dear Chairman Carr: By statute, the Federal Communications Commission is an independent five-member regulatory agency whose collective decisions are subject to review by the Federal Appellate Courts. Republican and Democratic Commissions have followed this structure and procedure for decades.
The CW Shake-Up: Dennis Miller To Exit, Brad Schwartz Expected To Lead Broadcast Network
Rumors about a potential Miller exit had been circulating for a couple of weeks. Nevertheless, his departure is surprising as Miller last year re-upped his contract to remain as CW President through …
Dow Gains 337, Nasdaq Adds 51, S&P Rises 27
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks rose Wednesday following better-than-expected profit reports from Morgan Stanley, United Airlines and other big companies. The S&P 500 gained 0.5% to recover much of the slide from its all-time high the day before because of tumbling energy and technology stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 337 points, or 0.8%, to set its own record, and the Nasdaq composite added 0.3%.
Open Mike -Episode 2 (Flashbacks and Sports)
Go to next audio Go to next audio
Chabot Gun Club face off with East Bay regional parks and anti-gun agitators, Nov 3
Chabot Gun Club Has Risen to the Challenge! In the last lease update, we painted a pretty bleak picture of our current relationship with the East Bay Regional Park District.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Open
Contact Open, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack