An electrical room incident at Fisher Plaza East knocked out power. KOMO and KUNS remained on air; only KVI-AM was disrupted.

Retransmission and Internet revenues can't climb fast enough for TV stations. But in a few years, both will be contributing significantly to stations' coffers. Each revenue source will be over the $1 billion mark, according to two recent estimates.

A dour report on job losses in June sent stocks sharply lower Thursday. Major stock indexes fell more than 2.6% after the government said the U.S. unemployment rate hit a 26-year high. The Dow Jones industrials closed at their lowest level in six weeks.

DirecTV has reached out to Blake Krikorian as a possible successor to Chase Carey as CEO. If that doesn't work out, another option could be joining the DirecTV board.

Chase Carey, who rejoined the media conglomerate as deputy chairman, president and chief operating officer, received a signing bonus of $10 million and will earn a base salary of $8.1 million.

Facing a July 10 government funding cutoff, General Motors Corp. is calling for quick approval of its bid to sell its "good" parts into a new company and emerge from bankruptcy protection.

Station group owner Young Broadcasting Inc. faces auction on July 14 in New York, according to its attorneys. The company probably will be sold or reorganized as a whole, according to the Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal law offices. Attorneys say there has been a "healthy amount of interest" in the auction, being undertaken at secured lenders' insistence.

The court seeks further arguments in case that could undermine the longstanding ban against corporations spending on issue advertising.

According to projections from SNL Kagan, retransmission consent fees are expected to increase to $1.2 billion by 2011. That would be more than double the $500 million for 2008, and up strongly from 2009's $739 million in retrans revenue.

Ford Motor Co. today called its 10.7% drop in U.S. June sales "steady progress," after a year of sharp declines across the industry.

Only six of the Top 50 TV station groups posted revenue growth, according to the latest BIAfn/TVNewsday 2008 ranking by revenue: Post-Newsweek, McGraw-Hill, Dispatch, Capitol, Griffin and CCA. Overall, BIAfn says, revenue fell 6.5% to $20.1 billion in 2008 and will plunge another 17.3% to $16.6 billion this year. And don't look for significant growth until 2012, it says.

Barely two weeks after being named interim CEO of Freedom Communications, Burl Osborne announced that company-wide salaries will be cut by 5%. In a memo, Osborne cited revenue shortfalls behind the move to trim pay.

Gannett Co., the largest U.S. newspaper publisher by daily circulation, will cut between 1,000 and 2,000 jobs out of its 41,500-person work force in response to continuing revenue declines, according to a person familiar with the company's thinking. The cuts will come from the U.S. Community Publishing division, which consists of Gannett's more than 80 local dailies.

Investors are adding consumer confidence to their growing list of things to worry about. Stocks fell sharply Tuesday after a private research group said consumer confidence unexpectedly fell in June.

The Media Financial Management Association has announced its officers and board of directors for 2009-10. The new board's first meeting is scheduled for Aug.11.

While TV broadcasters have the clear edge in online video, they had better establish some sturdy ad formats "while there are still revenues from the traditional business to support the transition to multiplatform," according to new research from media analyst firm Screen Digest.

Tampa Fox O&O WTVT laid off six workers including four staffers from its newsroom. Skeptics predicted that job reductions might follow the start of a new local news service allowing WTVT to team with rivals WFTS and WTSP to gather footage of routine news events. But WTVT GM Bill Schnieder insisted the job reductions and the LNS were not connected.