Apple should “step up to the plate” and activate FM chips in iPhones to promote public safety, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said Thursday. Broadcasters have long sought activation. “Apple is the one major phone manufacturer that has resisted doing so,” Pai said, and he hopes "the company will reconsider its position, given the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria.”
Early results of the third nationwide test of the emergency alert system Wednesday indicate few problems and a response in line with expectations, according to interviews with officials from broadcast and pay-TV EAS participants, state EAS representatives and the equipment industry. Roughly half the participants received the alert through the internet-based Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) and half through the older, broadcast-based system, as expected (see 1708250053).
The full FCC unanimously approved a notice of apparent liability for a $144,344 fine for a repeat offender North Miami, Florida, pirate radio operator and his landlords at Tuesday’s meeting. Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said the fine is the first commission-level NAL for a pirate radio operator. The fine is the maximum amount allowable by statute, Enforcement Bureau staff said. Fabrice Polynice and landlords Harold and Veronise Sido will have an opportunity to respond to the NAL before the FCC votes on a final forfeiture order, bureau Chief Rosemary Harold said in a later news conference. She said she hopes other pirate radio operators will learn of the fine on social media.
The FCC needs to work toward immediately restoring communications service to affected areas in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands before it considers longer term issues, said Chairman Ajit Pai in a news conference after a Public Safety Bureau report on the FCC response to storms Harvey, Irma and Maria at Tuesday’s commissioners’ meeting. The commission is “focused like a laser beam” on restoration, Pai said, calling the situation in Puerto Rico "dire." Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said the FCC should hold field hearings in affected areas on how best to prepare for such disasters. The agency should “have the guts” to get out on the ground, she said. “You don’t pull together a report with only the information you amass from sitting in front of your keyboard,” said Rosenworcel. “You get out.”
FCC Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Mike O’Rielly and Chairman Ajit Pai appeared to be in some disagreement about the goals of the newly empaneled Advisory Committee on Diversity and Digital Empowerment. The disagreement appeared in their remarks preceding the group’s first meeting Monday.
The General Services Administration and FCC landlord Parcel 49C are trying to get a Senate committee to authorize funds for a new tenant at the headquarters to get the stalled move to a new HQ rolling, said a status report (in Pacer) in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The FCC’s lease in the Portals building expires in October, but its new home won’t be complete until 2019. Negotiations over an interim lease in the Portals stalled while Parcel 49C waits for confirmation GSA’s plans to replace the FCC with another federal tenant -- Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. -- come to fruition, the filing said. Parcel 49C took the GSA to court for awarding the contract for the FCC’s new home to real estate developer Trammell Crow (see 1701120044), and the parties mutually agreed to a hold since the GSA began moving toward installing the PBGC in the Portals in the spring.
A U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit panel seemed skeptical Wednesday of Press Communications’ arguments that a station that lets its license expire forfeits rights to have its footprint protected by FCC spacing rules. Press deliberately chose not to seek a waiver of short spacing rules when it filed a minor modification application to move WBHX(FM) Tuckerton, New Jersey, to a new channel too close to another station with an expired license (see 1608100052), noted Judge Laurence Silberman during oral argument. “Costly choice, wasn’t it?” The FCC seemed to have made a “contrary determination” on whether considering the footprint of an expired license was in the public interest in considering WBHX’s move, Judge Cornelia Pillard said.
Sinclair’s proposed buy of Tribune didn’t get special FCC treatment, said Chairman Ajit Pai in a letter released Tuesday responding to correspondence from House Commerce ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Mike Doyle, D-Pa., and House Commerce Oversight Subcommittee ranking member Diana DeGette, D-Colo. (see 1708140058). “My actions have been motivated by my belief that a strong over the air broadcast service advances the public interest," Pai said. “They have not been fueled by a desire to help any particular company.”
The FCC Media Bureau request for more information on Sinclair buying Tribune isn’t a sign of increased scrutiny or hostility toward the deal at the agency (see 1709150041), industry analysts and even opponents of the transaction said in interviews Monday. The information request asked for specifics about many issues that have been raised by opposition group Coalition to Save Local Media (see 1708300053) but is seen to be motivated by procedural concerns rather than FCC agreement with critics of the deal, industry officials said.
A draft item that would relax certification and measurement requirements for stations using directional AM antennas isn't seen as controversial and likely won't face opposition from industry or on the eighth floor, broadcast attorneys, engineers and an official said in interviews. Chairman Ajit Pai called the draft "highly technical" when announcing it at the 2017 Radio Show (see 1709060073).