Media Maneuvers

Gray Television and Raycom Media have entered into an agreement to combine the two companies. Gray will acquire Raycom for $3.647 billion in total proceeds. Gray currently owns 100 stations across 57 television markets, while Raycom owns and/or provides services for 65 television stations and two radio stations in 44 markets. The combined entity would have the third-largest portfolio of stations and markets in the U.S., according to a joint press release from Gray and Raycom, serving 92 markets and reaching 24 percent of U.S. television households. In addition to acquiring Raycom’s television stations, Gray will pick up several additional assets, including Raycom Sports and RTM Productions, an automotive programming production and marketing company. Nine television stations in markets where the two companies have been competitors will be divested, as will Raycom’s Community Newspaper Holdings, which owns over 100 titles in 23 states.

Dan Ingram

Dan Ingram, whose career as a disc jockey included more than 20 years at New York City’s WABC-AM during rock radio’s heyday and over a decade at classic rock station WCBS-FM, died Sunday at his home in Florida. Known for his wisecracking on-air personality, Ingram would give his own slightly warped interpretations of song titles before playing a record, or add a bit of offhand irreverence to a weather report. Alongside Bruce Morrow (aka Cousin Brucie), Chuck Leonard and Scott Muni, Ingram was an integral part of WABC’s lineup from 1961 until 1982, when the station switched over to a talk-radio format. He landed at WCBS in 1991 and remained there until his retirement in 2003. While Ingram was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2014, his death resulted from choking on a piece of steak. He was 83.

Suzanne Scott

Following a string of controversial on-air remarks made by Fox News hosts and panelists, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott is pushing the network’s producers to play a greater role in monitoring what is said on the network’s programming. According a report published on POLITICO, Scott said producers would be held accountable for anything said during their programs, adding that it was their job to head off inappropriate remarks. “You are responsible for protecting the talent, protecting the brand,” she said during a video conference from Washington, D.C. to Fox employees, according to POLITICO’s sources. In addition to former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski’s belittling of a 10-year-old girl with Down syndrome who was separated from her mother, other recent statements made on the network include Laura Ingraham referring to child detention centers as “summer camps” and Ann Coulter’s charge that children being held at the U.S.-Mexico border were child actors.