The FCC Enforcement Bureau has “redoubled” its efforts to combat unauthorized broadcasting and is working its way through some of the changes required by the 2015 field modernization order, bureau officials told an FCBA event Tuesday. The bureau is seen as likely to function differently under the current administration than in the past, said a panel of industry officials. The bureau's general policy for enforcement actions is to start with a warning and then proceed in a way that will discourage future violations. “The driving force is what will be needed to encourage the individual to stop,” said Senior Field Counsel Steve Spaeth.
The FCC needs to provide relief for low-power TV stations in danger of getting bumped from their spectrum long before the post-incentive auction displacement window intended to find them a new home takes place, said the LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition in a letter Tuesday to the Incentive Auction Task Force and Media Bureau staff. Without some sort of action, “whole communities could go dark,” said coalition Executive Director Mike Gravino in an interview. Unless the FCC provides some accommodation for what Gravino calls “phase zero” stations, a court battle that would slow the repacking effort is likely, he said.
The FCC has received 20 applications for construction permits for the post-incentive auction transition, and granted 14, said Media Bureau Associate Chief Hillary DeNigro and Video Division Chief Barbara Kreisman at an FCBA event Monday. Members of the Incentive Auction Task Force also discussed the repacking schedule, timing of payments, and broadcasters seeking payment for equipment upgrades. Though applications aren’t due until July 12, the officials said more applications would be welcome and will be granted on a rolling basis. “We’re ready for the onslaught,” said DeNigro.
Commissioner Mignon Clyburn was critical of both media items approved by the FCC Thursday, dissenting from only the public notice on review of media regulations. “In the case of this PN, the FCC’s majority starts with a premise that advancing the public interest can only be achieved by clearing the books of rules for the benefit of industry,” Clyburn said after the 2-1 vote. She voted in favor of the NPRM seeking comment on eliminating the main studio rule for broadcasters but expressed reservations about its effect on localism.
The FCC could consider a "phased approach" to the transition to ATSC 3.0 and could be open to changes to broadcaster public interest requirements, said Media Bureau Chief Michelle Carey at an ATSC conference (see 1705170033) Wednesday, saying the agency is "drilling down" into comments on the ATSC 3.0 NPRM. ATSC 3.0 is a "top priority," Carey said, saying the recent comments created a "robust record" and staff are working on the new standard as fast as they can.
Differences between Free Access & Broadcast Telemedia’s current challenge of the incentive auction rules and a prior one from low-power TV broadcaster Mako Communications (see 1608300056) were a focus Tuesday of a three-judge panel at oral argument at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The panel included judges who previously sided with the FCC on the incentive auction in multiple cases. Broadcast attorneys didn’t expect FAB to be succeed.
The FCC 2017 filing window for new FM translator licenses is expected to be announced soon and generate hundreds of applications, radio industry officials and attorneys told us Monday. The opening of the promised 2017 window was added to the list of items on circulation Friday. Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford said in a blog post he expects the window “very soon.”
The FCC report on its collected Form 323 demographic data was released late and will be of limited usefulness (see 1705100076), said lawyer/adviser Cheryl Leanza of the United Church of Christ. Public interest groups such as UCC and the Hispanic Media Coalition wanted the data from the report to inform broadcast regulation decisions made during the previous 2014 quadrennial review, but the data -- on ownership information in 2015 -- wasn’t released until Wednesday. Even with the data, high numbers of stations that don’t turn in the information make it difficult to draw conclusions, Leanza said. Chairman Ajit Pai should improve collection and analysis of Form 323 data, Leanza said. Pai “has proclaimed a very strong interest in data and analysis, she said, “If you don’t know why things are happening, how can you decide how to make changes?” she said.
The 11-year span between the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council’s filing of a petition on multilingual emergency alert system messages and the FCC denying that petition was a major focus of a three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Thursday. Judge Patricia Millett called the delay "dramatic” and the wait was the subject of several questions by Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who said the commission was “moving slowly.”
TV broadcasters want the FCC to handle ATSC 3.0 with a “light regulatory touch.” MVPDs, wireless entities, consumer groups and NPR urged the agency to protect retransmission negotiations, unlicensed spectrum, radio and the post-incentive auction repacking from the transition to the new television standard, in comments filed Tuesday in docket 16-142 (see 1705090053). The FCC should “expeditiously adopt only those minimal regulations necessary to permit broadcasters to voluntarily implement ATSC 3.0 transmissions,” said Nexstar. The transition to the new standard “threatens to compound disruption in the industry and to the public,” said NCTA.