Draft FM translator order rules on the minimum number of complaints required for a full-power FM station to lodge an interference complaint against an FM translator are arbitrary and disadvantage large stations (see 1904180063), said Beasley Media and iHeartMedia in FCC filings posted Wednesday. The order would tie the minimum number of complaints to the population served by the complaining full-power station, with the number required ranging from three for low-power FM stations to 65 for the largest full-power FMs. By basing the requirement on the population served by the full power, that could make it impossible for large stations to find enough complaints, Beasley and iHeart wrote commissioners and told Media Bureau staff, now in docket 18-119. “Basing the number of required complaints on the population being served by the complaining station divorces the required number of complaints from the actual interference.” A station with a highly populated coverage area that experiences interference in a sparsely populated area “may be unable to find enough listeners in that interference area,” said the companies. Tie the number of complaints to the area where interference is occurring, and cap it at 25, they said. Though the draft order also didn’t follow the broadcasters’ recommendations for a 42 dBu contour, Beasley and iHeart said that, outside the complaint issue, the agency has “an exemplary job” balancing between translators and full powers. If the FCC changes the complaint minimums, "set a workable path for the prompt and fair resolution of FM translator interference complaints,” the radio-station owners asked. Bonneville International, iHeart Communications and the Educational Media Foundation also wrote a letter to all five commissioners objecting to questions raised by REC Networks about how the FM translator interference draft order would interact with "super-maximum" class B stations (see 1904250055). "REC’s request goes far beyond the issues proposed in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in this proceeding and would also result in upsetting established listener expectations," the joint letter said. REC had suggested the interference rules for the high-powered, grandfathered Class B FM stations wouldn't calculate such station's interference limit using their maximum range, but instead the range of other stations in their class. "Such an action would be contrary to the mission of the Commission’s rules in protecting the reception of existing stations’ service to people in populated areas from potential interference caused by secondary stations," the joint letter said. "The NPRM in this proceeding did not suggest any special treatment of super-power FM stations, nor did the Draft Order." In its own letter to the FCC on translator interference, the New Jersey Broadcasters Association urged the FCC to postpone the planned May 9 vote on the interference order and "extend the time period in which to file further responses by 30 days." NJBA wants a 40 dbU contour and a maximum of 12 complaints. New Jersey broadcasters have historically dealt with unfair allocations of frequencies, compared with New York and Pennsylvania, and that issue "should not be exacerbated by new rule changes that would negatively impact our broadcasters and the audiences," the group said.
The completion of a bankruptcy restructuring by iHeartMedia Wednesday is expected to be followed by a sale or public offering for the broadcaster and improved health for the radio industry as a whole but isn’t expected to lead to iHeart binge-buying stations, radio attorneys, consultants and analysts told us. The restructuring process reduced iHeart’s debt by more than $10 billion, it said in a news release Monday. “The perception (and reality) that iHeart is now an independently functioning company out from under the scrutiny of bankruptcy court will greatly improve its image and the image of radio, too,” emailed media broker Robert Heymann, from the Chicago office of Media Services Group. The FCC OK'd the restructuring plan last week (see 1904240054).
Broadcasters, diversity groups and organizations opposed to media consolidation squared off in many combinations in docket 18-349 Tuesday. Monday night was the deadline for comments on the FCC 2018 quadrennial review.
Initial comments on the FCC 2018 quadrennial review order were due Monday in docket 18-349. Those filed early show broadcasters and interest groups largely holding to their positions. The Multicultural Media Telecom and Internet Council said "failure to remedy the lingering effects of its past history” kept minorities almost entirely out of broadcasting for 50 years. Connoisseur Media called again for the FCC to eliminate rules on broadcasters in embedded markets (see 1710100057). Crawford Broadcasting argued that FCC proposals to relax AM/FM subcaps could “have an unanticipated detrimental effect on the industry and on the values of AM stations in particular.” Crawford owns 15 AM stations and 9 FM stations. MMTC defended its proposal to apply cable procurement diversity rules to broadcasting (see 1811200048), calling the Office of Economics and Analytics the “ideal” entity to create an innovative way to measure diversity. “The rudimentary methodology the Commission uses to measure competition and diversity is little more than ‘station counting," MMTC said.
An equal employment opportunity enforcement item listed as circulated to FCC commissioners’ offices is the draft Further NPRM on EEO enforcement announced by Chairman Ajit Pai during the FCC’s February approval of an item eliminating midterm EEO reports (see 1902140053), FCC officials told us Monday. Pai promised the FNRPM as a compromise in response to a request from Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks; it was the latter’s first full-length meeting as a commissioner. Though Starks and Rosenworcel sought a 30-day turnaround, Pai promised it within 90 days of EEO order adoption. Pai said then the FNPRM would seek broad comment on the agency’s EEO enforcement, while Starks and Rosenworcel hoped for comments on the agency’s collection of EEO data. Starks and Rosenworcel said in February the agency should take the final steps to begin collecting data on workforce diversity and resolve a 15-year-old open proceeding. In the midterm report EEO order, the FNPRM was described as seeking comment on the FCC’s “track record” on EEO enforcement and “how the agency can make improvements to EEO compliance and enforcement.”
During a massive emergency like California’s 2018 Thomas Fire, people are “just hungry” for information, said Brian Uhl, emergency manager for the Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Management. “It’s extremely important to provide alerts in multiple languages if your jurisdiction has people who speak multiple languages.” The county gets emergency alert system messages in both Spanish and English. But it's one of the few localities where this happens. And that concerns some. The reasons multilingual EAS isn't common are complex, and though some support FCC action, others are focused on local control.
During a massive emergency like California’s 2018 Thomas Fire, people are “just hungry” for information, said Brian Uhl, emergency manager for the Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Management. “It’s extremely important to provide alerts in multiple languages if your jurisdiction has people who speak multiple languages.” The county gets emergency alert system messages in both Spanish and English. But it's one of the few localities where this happens. And that concerns some. The reasons multilingual EAS isn't common are complex, and though some support FCC action, others are focused on local control.
The 78 percent national TV-station ownership reach cap proposal supported by Nexstar, several other such owners and NAB would create additional room for the company above the current rules, though it’s being couched as maintaining the status quo, CEO Perry Sook Tuesday. With a baseball cap touting “78 percent” sitting on the podium, Sook backed the threshold and discussed ATSC 3.0, Nexstar buying Tribune and DOJ’s definition of broadcast competition. “It is in our national interest to allow a regulated industry such as ours to compete on a level playing field serving our video content, at least domestically, with the virtually unregulated companies that do so,” Sook told a Media Institute lunch.
The FCC released formerly confidential information about incentive auction reverse auction bids that didn’t win, said a public notice Monday. The information is being released because a promised two-year deadline, dating from the April 13, 2017, close of the auction, has now passed. The agency released the data only on winning bidders when the auction closed in 2017. “Today we are making available information about non-winning bids and other related data regarding bidding in the reverse auction,” the PN said. The information will be useful to non-winning broadcasters to see how close they came to getting an auction payout, said Fletcher Heald broadcast attorney Peter Tannenwald in an interview. The details also could show which broadcasters were open to unloading their stations but didn’t get the chance, BIA/Kelsey Chief Economist Mark Fratrik told us.
The FCC’s draft order on FM translator interference would create a 45 dBu contour limit for interference complaints, establish a minimum number of such complaints based on population served, and allow translators to move channels with a minor change application, according to the version released Thursday. The FCC also posted the China Mobile and other items also set for a vote at the May 9 open meeting.