The FCC TV incentive auction order’s use of TVStudy repacking software and lack of protection for broadcaster coverage areas should be vacated, NAB and Sinclair said in a joint brief to the U.S Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Two other aspects of the order, the timeframe for repacked stations to move to their new assigned channel and the definition of competition among TV stations, are attacked in the brief by Sinclair alone, without NAB participation.
The Media Bureau “usurped” FCC authority by allowing access to video programming confidential information (VPCI) in the Comcast/Time Warner Cable and AT&T/DirecTV deals before an application for review against doing so had been considered by the full commission, said a group of programmers in an application for review and emergency stay request filed Friday. The content companies, which include CBS, Disney and Viacom, had filed an application for review and a stay request against the Media Bureau’s protective order for documents in the transaction proceedings. Friday's additional filings challenge the bureau’s Tuesday modification of that protective order and announcement that most of the programmer’s objections were being dismissed (see 1411050050).
Aereo is cutting staff in its Boston and New York offices, Vice President-Communications and Government Relations Virginia Lam emailed us Thursday. “We are continuing to conserve resources while we chart our path,” Lam said. “This was a difficult, but necessary step in order to preserve the company.” In a letter to the company's Boston employees obtained by website Betaboston, Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia said the company has been unable to obtain outside investments since the recent nationwide injunction was granted against it by U.S. District Court in Manhattan Judge Alison Nathan. Lam said the company is looking for a way to continue. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and other commission officials have recently mentioned Aereo extensively in connection with a draft NPRM on classifying linear over-the-top video services as multichannel video programming distributors. The broadcasters' case against Aereo in New York has yet to be tried on the merits, and would likely continue in some form even if Aereo were to go out of business, Fletcher Heald attorneys Harry Cole and Kevin Goldberg told us. Though not involved in the case, Cole and Goldberg follow it for the firm's blog. Though broadcasters could pursue their case even if Aereo were to go out of business, the sort of default judgments that likely would occur with a defunct defendant are unlikely to further the broadcasters' legal agenda, said Cole and Goldberg. Fletcher Heald represents broadcasters, though not in any cases involving Aereo. Lam declined to comment further on the scope of the layoffs.
A draft rulemaking notice seeking comment on allowing broadcasters to communicate contest rule information online rather than over-the-air owes its presence on the FCC's November agenda partly to a June blog post by FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly, several broadcast attorneys and an FCC official told us Thursday. Proposed in a petition from Entercom Executive Vice President Jack Donlevie in 2012, the item has languished since, despite receiving no opposition. “Small changes to our Contest Rule could improve consumer notice and options for broadcaster compliance,” O'Rielly said in the post endorsing the rule change. The item is set for a vote at the Nov. 21 open meeting.
Media Bureau Rejects Most Programmer Objections In Merger Reviews; Will Restart Shot Clock Next Week
The FCC Media Bureau rejected most objections by content companies against lawyers looking at their confidential documents and will start the shot clock for AT&T's planned buy of DirecTV and Comcast/Time Warner Cable in five days, the Media Bureau said in several orders (here, here, here and here). The shot clock will turn back on Wednesday Nov. 12, a bureau spokeswoman told us. The bureau will also issue a public notice announcing new pleading cycles for the deals, the orders said. The orders rejected objections against 245 people being allowed to view confidential contract documents that had been filed by a group of content companies that include Disney, Viacom and 21st Century Fox (see 1410170055).
A Nexstar deal involving a joint sales agreement with Marshall Broadcasting was approved Friday only after the companies rearranged the financing on the transaction and withdrew a request for a JSA waiver, according to FCC documents, a broadcast attorney and documents filed with the commission. The deal involved the transfer of six stations from the estate of Milton Grant to Nexstar, and one station, KLJB Davenport, Iowa, to Marshall Broadcasting.
FCC TVStudy repacking software undervalues the coverage area of some Class A TV stations due to a flaw in how data on the stations is inputted, said the Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition in an informal comment filed Friday. The incorrect data causes TVStudy to underpredict some Class A contours and interference, and would cause the affected stations to be undervalued in the auction or to experience interference issues on being repacked, EOBC Executive Director Preston Padden told us. It should not be hard for the FCC to correct the input error and fix the problem, and he expects that it will do so, Padden said. The EOBC's spotting an error in the software is an example of why the FCC has tried to be transparent about the incentive auction, an agency spokeswoman told us, saying the commission welcomed the EOBC filing.
A draft NPRM seeking comment on extending online political ad filing requirements to cable and direct broadcast satellite providers and satellite radio and terrestrial radio stations has been circulated among eighth-floor offices, FCC officials told us Thursday. The NPRM is in response to a petition (see 1409020036) for rulemaking from the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause and the Sunlight Foundation seeking extension of the online filing rules, which already apply to TV stations. Though the petition only sought to extend the rule to cover pay-TV operators, a comment proceeding on the petition also floated the idea of extending the requirement to radio.
A draft rulemaking notice (NPRM) proposing classifying linear online video providers as multichannel video programming distributors wouldn’t immediately change much for over-the-top companies, said cable and content officials in interviews Wednesday. The NPRM, circulated late Tuesday according to an FCC official, would enable over-the-top services to take advantage of program access and retransmission consent rights to better offer competition to cable incumbents in the video market, said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a blog post Tuesday (see 1410280053). Retrans rights would still leave OTT services unable to stream broadcast content without also negotiating for content rights, and program access rights apply only to negotiations with vertically integrated distributors, which in practice largely means Comcast, said industry officials.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler circulated a proposal Tuesday to change the definition of a multichannel video programming distributor to be “technology neutral,” he said in a blog post Tuesday. As expected (see 1410220044), the draft proposal would open the definition up to include providers of linear online video, the blog post said. The change would give the new MVPDs “the same access to programming owned by cable operators and the same ability to negotiate to carry broadcast TV stations that Congress gave to satellite systems in order to ensure competitive video markets,” Wheeler said, referring to program access and retransmission consent rules.