Comcast and Dish Network losing subscribers is good for streaming services like CBS All Access, CBS CEO Les Moonves told investors Thursday. Cord-cutters end up migrating to streaming offerings like All Access, Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker emailed investors earlier in the day. MVPD consolidation hasn’t “impacted” retransmission consent fees, Moonves told a Goldman Sachs conference. He believes Sinclair's buy of Tribune will be approved, and CBS will look at expansion opportunities in American Football Conference markets such as Houston and Cleveland. Moonves believes CBS’ TV business is “strong,” a spokesperson confirmed. CBS will renew its NFL rights in 2022, and Moonves expects Amazon and Google to bid on the digital rights, Ryvicker wrote.
Most radio stations affected by the post-incentive auction repacking will be able to broadcast at reduced power from their own or auxiliary facilities rather than going off-air, and likely will have to do so only intermittently, said tower industry executives, broadcasters and their engineers in interviews. Even short periods off-air or not being able to be received throughout its full contour can have disastrous effects for a radio station, broadcasters said. Losing a small portion of a station’s revenue due to unaired ads can severely affect profit, said Henson Media CEO Ed Henson. “Radio is a fixed cost business.” Legislators expressed support for legislation that would compensate affected stations for repacking-related costs (see 1709070058).
Some broadcast industry officials now don’t expect FCC action on petitions for reconsideration of the 2014 quadrennial review until after Chairman Ajit Pai has been reconfirmed. Since it's not known when or if that reconfirmation will take place, expected relaxation of newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rules and other ownership policies may not occur until at least October, and possibly not until the end of 2017, said broadcast executives. Legislators deferred Pai’s reconfirmation when they confirmed Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Brendan Carr in August (see 1708030060). Pai told us last week he hadn't begun considering the agency’s plans for October (see 1709060073).
AUSTIN -- A pending adjudication on a translator interfering with a full-power FM station likely will bring “more clarity” to the FCC’s process for handling such complaints, said Media Bureau Audio Division Chief Peter Doyle on a panel Thursday at Radio Show 2017. “We are working on a case right now where a number of these issues are teed up.” The case is widely believed to be between an FM translator in Greenfield, Indiana, rebroadcasting Radio One, and Reising Radio’s full-power WXCH Columbus, Indiana (see 1707280059). Doyle indicated support for reforming the way the commission handles interference complaints between translators and stations: “We’re going to have to bear down and figure out some better procedures.”
AUSTIN -- Chairman Ajit Pai promised at the Radio Show that the FCC will tackle deregulation of its media “underbrush” though a series of monthly NPRMs, going forward. He offered few specifics about rollback of ownership rules that Connoisseur Media CEO Jeff Warshaw said on a panel earlier Wednesday is “required” for radio’s “survival.” Radio needs “the rope cut from our hands,” Warshaw said. Lack of specifics about ownership deregulation didn’t appear to faze attendees, who gave Pai a standing ovation. Several told us they had little doubt the FCC would roll back ownership rules governing radio. “I’m hopeful that it’ll come soon,” said John Zimmer, CEO of Zimmer Radio.
The health of radio, with its lack of deal-making, advertising slowdown and debt-burdened industry leaders, is expected to be the main topic of the 2017 Radio Show, which kicks off in Austin Tuesday, industry experts said. “Cumulus and iHeart and their need to restructure are continuously overhanging the industry” (see 1708090069), said MVP Capital founder and broker Elliot Evers. Media ownership rules such as AM/FM subcaps (see 1704100065) and FM translators will likely also be on the menu, but the financial state of the industry was foremost in the minds of the broadcast executives, attorneys and brokers interviewed.
“Zombie” stations that sold their spectrum in the incentive auction and now want to sell their stations to their channel sharing partners are still waiting for a clear signal from the FCC, numerous attorneys told us. After the FCC indicated that it considers such deals new and novel, many were restructured in a way believed to be more acceptable to the commission, but it’s not clear how such deals will be treated. Lawyers said the FCC still may see a licensee selling its spectrum in the auction and then selling its license as “double dipping.”
A combined Sinclair/Tribune will use its increased leverage over the repacking to force wireless carriers to incorporate ATSC 3.0 technology into handsets, said T-Mobile and the Competitive Carriers Association in replies posted in FCC docket 17-179 Wednesday. “If Sinclair is allowed to proceed with its acquisition of Tribune, Sinclair’s attempt to force inefficient, costly behavior from wireless carriers and their customers is likely to succeed,” CCA said.
The Sept. 27 nationwide test of the emergency alert system (see 1612280045) is expected by FCC and state EAS officials and industry EAS experts to yield results similar to last year’s. The exercise will be done using very similar parameters to 2016, but unlike that test won’t debut new test codes or procedures, FCC and EAS industry officials told us.
Petitions to deny Sinclair buying Tribune are either “naive” or transparently self-serving, the two companies said in a partially redacted opposition filing Tuesday. It punched back at accusations from opponents such as Dish Network, Newsmax and Free Press that the deal would slow the incentive auction repacking, hurt broadcast localism, squeeze out independent programmers or break FCC ownership regulations. “None of the petitioners provides a shred of evidence demonstrating that the post-merger company will violate any Commission rule,” Sinclair and Tribune said. “Each of the petitioners is either trying to use this proceeding to stifle competition for its own economic interests or is still living in a pre-cable, pre-internet, pre-smartphone world, untethered from the economic realities of the current media market.” Despite the diverse opposition, the deal is expected to be approved (see 1708150063).