Comcast will extend its commitment to workforce and programming diversity to millions more Americans after it buys Time Warner Cable, Comcast Executive Vice President-Chief Diversity Officer David Cohen wrote in a blog post Friday. The media company has a "clear and proven track record of serving" and reflecting diverse communities, including through its board of directors, Cohen wrote. Twenty-two percent of Comcast and NBCUniversal's workforce is African-American, he said. The number of African-Americans increased by 20 percent in director-level jobs and by 26 percent at the vice president level, from 2010 to 2013, he said. Comcast and NBCUniversal spent $1.3 billion in 2013 with diverse vendors, he said. Cohen said Comcast carries 15 networks focused on the African-American community and supported the launch of Aspire and Revolt, African American-led networks, in 2012 and 2013. Internet Essentials, a broadband adoption program, connected more than 1.8 million low-income Americans to the Internet, he said.

Nexstar Broadcasting is expanding Tactive Digital's market reach by establishing offices in 18 markets, a Nexstar news release said. Tactive Digital is a digital marketing agency and division of Nexstar Broadcasting. Its initial service rollout will be in Hagerstown, Md./Washington, D.C.; Salt Lake City; Las Vegas; Jacksonville ; Memphis/Jackson; Fresno; Scranton/Wilkes-Barre; Little Rock; Green Bay; Springfield, Mo.; Rochester and Syracuse; Bloomington/Peoria and Champaign; Fayetteville, Ark.; Evansville, Ind.; and Lubbock and Wichita Falls, Tex., the release said.

IHeartMedia created and launched a programmatic and automated advertising buying platform for its broadcast radio stations, it said in a news release Wednesday. It's powered by cloud-platform provider Jelli, iHeartMedia said. The platform will let iHeartMedia offer ad inventory to advertisers and agencies interested in improving the buying process and reducing administrative delays, it said. Through the platform, iHeartMedia will use data sets to target ads, including music-based psychographic groups, weather and traffic patterns, purchase behavior and other trends, it said. IHeartMedia said its Katz Media Group, a national sales firm representing radio broadcasters, also launched Expressway from Katz, a programmatic buying ad exchange for radio, using the same technology.

TV and radio station deals are at their lowest quarterly volume since 2012, SNL Kagan said in an email Thursday. They reached $184.9 million in Q1 2015, compared with $778.1 million in Q1 2014. “The market is taking a break after the historically high volumes of the last two years,” SNL Kagan said. That volume could remain low in 2015 because of “leverage concerns at some of the larger radio companies, as well as the uncertainties surrounding the pending FCC incentive auction,” the industry researcher said. The largest single radio station deal so far in 2015 was the Educational Media Foundation’s $7 million buy of KMCQ(FM) Covington, Washington, from Queen Cities Broadcasting, the firm said. The largest TV deal of 2015 was Neuhoff Communications' $17.5 million sale of two stations to Gray Television, SNL Kagan said.

Time Warner Cable deployed converged cable access platforms for both data and video in the New York City market, making it the first cable operator to do so, said a blog post from Ronald Da Silva, vice president-network engineering, architecture and technology, on TWC's website Wednesday. The company is continuing to transmit digital video over cable using older technologies as well, he said. CCAP will minimize TWC's use of power, space and facilities, Da Silva said.

CBS reached agreement with the CBS affiliate board for its digital subscription service, All Access, the network said Thursday. In a news release, CBS said it has secured early deals with a number of affiliate partners, including Dispatch, Graham Media, Gray, Hearst, Lilly Broadcasting, Meredith, Morgan Murphy, Morris Network, Neuhoff Media, Nexstar, Raycom and Withers, with more expected. The live linear feeds in many of the 12 affiliate groups' markets will begin rolling out this month, CBS said. The new option is a VOD and Nielsen-measured live streaming service, CBS said. It said the ability to live stream local CBS stations through CBS All Access is provided by Syncbak, in which CBS has a minority investment.

Technicolor teamed with Sinclair to successfully demonstrate the world's first live broadcast transmission of Ultra HD with high dynamic range using technologies that have been proposed for ATSC 3.0, the companies said Thursday in a joint statement. The series of broadcasts, integrated into Sinclair's experimental OFDM transmission system and transmitted under real-world conditions outside a lab, delivered "high-quality" HDR content broadcast at HD and 4K/UHD resolutions in a single-layer with backward-compatible standard dynamic range, they said. Both HDR and legacy devices, including fixed-position TVs and mobile devices, “were all able to receive and display the broadcast signal,” they said. "We're building a path toward new broadcast TV services that are appropriate for UHD and HDR," said Vince Pizzica, Technicolor senior executive vice president-corporate development and technology. "We're excited to reach the first milestone in our testing of real-world, challenging environments. This latest series of over-the-air tests confirms that Technicolor's HDR video solutions support broadcast at HD and 4K resolutions, as well as for standard dynamic range and mobile devices, presenting a whole new world of opportunities for broadcasters." Technicolor is a founding member of the UHD Alliance, which advocates open HDR standards, as is Dolby Labs, which has its proprietary Dolby Vision HDR system. Sinclair has advocated speedy deployment of a next-gen broadcast system, even if it’s a proprietary Sinclair system it thinks can reach market faster than ATSC 3.0 (see 1405080082).

LG, GatesAir and Zenith Labs, developers of the Futurecast system, plan a media briefing Monday at the NAB Show to trumpet the news, announced this week, that Futurecast no longer is just a physical-layer proposal for ATSC 3.0 but has been expanded "to incorporate all of the major elements of an ATSC 3.0 next-generation broadcast system." Futurecast is now "a complete system" for ATSC 3.0 that incorporates proposals for the next-gen system's applications/presentations layer and management/protocol layer, its backers said. New Futurecast attributes to be demonstrated at the GatesAir booth in the Las Vegas Convention Center's Central Hall include its "integrated emergency alerting" capability that triggers activation of the next-gen Advanced Warning and Response Network, they said. Also to be demonstrated is Futurecast's capability to "seamlessly deliver addressable content" on two LG Smart TV systems that "render the advertisement slot differently while displaying identical programmatic content," they said. "The goal is to show how broadcasters can leverage ATSC 3.0 technologies to extend their current service by efficiently distributing addressable content such as targeted ads or personalized/localized program elements to viewers utilizing an ATSC 3.0 system."

The FCC should consider new ways to combat "the scourge that is pirate radio" stations, Commissioner Michael O'Rielly said in a blog post Wednesday. The commission could offer broadcasters a new right to use the legal process to "go after" pirate stations and find violators, he said. This has been done outside spectrum policy, for combating email spam, he said. The NAB's Broadcast Leadership Training Program approach can be used to prepare underrepresented populations for ownership positions in broadcasting, he said. "Those truly interested in operating a legal broadcast station can seek to participate in the Commission’s July 2015 auction," where 131 FM construction permits will be made available, with many in smaller markets, he said. O'Rielly isn't advocating increased lawsuits or class action suits, or for allowing a station's listeners to file lawsuits, he said. A more targeted private right of action by broadcasters can combat pirate stations, he said. O'Rielly said he isn't discussing the commission's proposal to reorganize and close FCC field offices, which mentioned pirate radio, he said.

Sling TV will add HBO to its programming next week, Sling said in a news release Wednesday. Sling TV customers can access HBO's linear channel and on-demand content for $15, when they sign up for the $20 Best of Live TV core package, it said. With this addition, Sling TV will be the only streaming service that offers ESPN and HBO, it said.