WSB Atlanta

The 40-year industry icon is taking on a leadership role in his church.

Reasons to celebrate? A station’s milestone anniversary, a major award, new branding.

ABC affiliate WSB-TV leads the nation in political advertising this year with $86 million so far. The figure jumps to nearly $232 million when taking in the period from Jan. 1, 2020 through Nov. 28 of this year, according to ad tracker AdImpact. It’s been a good stretch not only for WSB, owned by Cox Media, but other area stations as well. Three Atlanta stations were among the top five nationally for political spending between Jan. 1, 2020 through Nov. 28 of this year, according to AdImpact.

WPCH, WGCL, WSB, WAGA and WXIA are now broadcasting with ATSC 3.0 technology.

Cox Media Group’s WSB has been the beast in Atlanta for many years, but the race is tightening. Fox-owned WAGA is coming on strong with its relentless local content strategy, and the other players are shaking things up, too.

The FCC has rebuked Meredith’s WPCH Atlanta and Georgia Television’s WSB-TV Atlanta for failing to include “certain requests to purchase political ad time” for non-candidate issue ads in their public files. The admonishment, which is a black mark that goes on their permanent records, resolves a half-dozen complaints filed by Issue One and the Campaign Legal Center dating from August 2017.

New jobs posted last week on TVNewsCheck’s Media Job Center are for Cox Media and Hearst stations in Georgia and Pennsylvania for a news photographer/videographer and a creative services director.

He moves from the Cox’s radio and TV properties in Orlando to succeed the retiring Steve Riley at its Atlanta ABC affiliate.