Brian Lawlor

The seventh annual Devoncroft Executive Summit on April 8 in Las Vegas features a TV broadcasting panel where Brian Lawlor, E.W. Scripps Co.; Kevin Latek, Gray Television; and Steven Pruett, Sinclair Broadcast Group, will discuss what broadcasters are doing to make sure their medium adapts and prospers and how it fits into the larger TV firmament.

The trend of station groups creating and syndicating their own shows has proven itself as a worthy way to create cost-effective programming that speaks to local and regional audiences, according to a panel of executives who spoke Wednesday at NATPE.

The moves follow Adam Symson’s move to president-CEO earlier this month. The moves are promotions for Brian Lawlor, Laura Tomlin, Lisa Knutson, Tim Wesolowski and William Appleton.

The Tegna Media exec succeeds Charles Warfield. Brian Lawlor elected TV chair and José Valle elected Radio chair.

A NATPE panel says the ad outlook for this year is strong, even without last year’s political spending. When asked about the seemingly slow pace of development of mobile TV, Brian Lawlor of Scripps, said: “This is a massive undertaking for content providers, technology, cell carriers, manufacturers and broadcasters. The better news is that we have 70-something markets lit up, with devices on the market.” Concerns include Aereo and The Hopper, while the panelists emphasized their intentions to keep all their spectrum to continue to innovate and serve their communities.

A NATPE panel offered predictions on the future of retransmission consent at stations. Deb McDermott of Young Broadcasting said that she was not opposed to sharing the retrans revenue with the networks “as long as it is the right division of revenue — as long as they don’t get greedy.” And Nexstar’s Perry Sook suggested that even sending half of the revenue to the networks is not unreasonable.

A NATPE panel offered predictions on the future of retransmission consent at stations. Deb McDermott of Young Broadcasting said that she was not opposed to sharing the retrans revenue with the networks “as long as it is the right division of revenue — as long as they don’t get greedy.” And Nexstar’s Perry Sook suggested that even sending half of the revenue to the networks is not unreasonable.

After talking for nine months on a plan in which NBC would use its clout and scale to negotiate attractive retrans deals with cable and satellite in exchange for a percentage of the revenue, there is still no agreement. But both sides say they’re confident there will be one. The problem is that there is no one-size fits-all formula.

Last week’s $212 million purchase of the McGraw-Hill TV group will boost Scripps’ U.S. coverage to 13% and make it the country’s largest owner of ABC affiliates. And it also gives it five low-power Spanish-language stations. Brian Lawlor, Scripps’ SVP of the TV division, says his company made the deal because the new stations are “a really comfortable fit” in terms of culture, geography and size. He talks about the plans to make the most of this new opportunity, the company’s first major station purchase in 20 years.

Cloud-based services for broadcasters include graphics, asset management, email for user-generated video, back-office functions and warehousing of documents and video. The list of services and vendors grows almost daily. Although some broadcasters, attracted mostly by the cost savings and improved efficiency, have embraced the services, others still harbor a basic mistrust of them, principally because they rely on the public Internet that lies beyond their control.

With the addition of the Scripps outlets that reach 10% of TV homes, the lifestyle channel has boosted its coverage to more than 40%. The channel counts 16 other affiliates: eight ABC-owned, five Belo, two Lilly Broadcasting and one LKK Group.

Under the network’s new “proxy” plan, it would receive 50% of the affiliates’ retransmission consent revenue in return for taking over negotiations. “Every affiliate will be treated exactly the same,” said NBC affiliate board head Brian Lawlor of Scripps.