Weather delays from the rainiest 12 months on record, a shortage of tower crews and, to a slight degree, steel tariffs are making the post-incentive auction repacking tough for some broadcasters. FCC flexibility and increasing use of auxiliary antennas are keeping it largely on track for the moment, said broadcasters, attorneys, manufacturers, tower crews and the FCC. Though at the repack’s start, industry officials had been concerned that snowballing delays would become a big problem by the current phase (phase 3), they now predict big problems in 5 and 6, which have the tightest deadlines.
The FCC will begin accepting applications Tuesday for TV stations to transition to ATSC 3.0, said a Media Bureau public notice Thursday. Though the commission’s ATSC 3.0 order was approved in November 2017, broadcasters have been waiting for the agency to create a form and process in the FCC’s license management system (LMS) for the transition.
Low-power FM and noncommercial educational broadcast interests expressed general support in comments posted through Tuesday in docket 19-3 for FCC-proposed changes to processes for licensees to apply for NCE and LPFM licenses during filing windows. They also suggested some tweaks. “Most of the changes proposed are inconsequential for most existing operators or most prospective operators,” said LPFM broadcaster Jeff Sibert, president of Park Public Radio. “Substantial reform is needed to address significant short-comings in the NCE and LPFM service.”
The industry-sponsored TV Parental Guidelines Oversight Monitoring Board (TVOMB) has been “insufficiently accessible and transparent to the public,” said the FCC Media Bureau in a report to Congress. It was posted Thursday on the TV ratings body and the accuracy of its ratings, as expected (see 1905140069).
A draft order on cable leased access rules set for the June commissioners’ meeting would eliminate requirements that cable companies provide part-time access to leased access programmers and include a Further NPRM on modifying the rate formula, FCC General Counsel Tom Johnson said Wednesday at a Media Institute luncheon. Cable companies have supported eliminating the part-time requirement, while leased access programmers want it preserved (see 1905140059). Along with leased access, Johnson discussed upcoming FCC legal cases and the Office of General Counsel (OGC) under Chairman Ajit Pai.
The FCC will deliver its report to Congress on the TV ratings system Wednesday but won’t release the report publicly until 48 hours later, an FCC spokesperson told us. Wednesday is the due date for the report, which was required in the 2019 Consolidated Appropriations Act. It was provided to eighth-floor offices ahead of its release but was put out by the Media Bureau on delegated authority, requiring no commissioner votes, the spokesperson said. Parents Television Council President Tim Winter declined to comment on the report before he has seen its contents but said the bulk of the record supports improving the TV ratings system. PTC is widely seen as the impetus behind the directive from Congress, and the group delivered 1,400 petitions to the FCC calling for change last week (see 1905070046). Little action is expected to result from the report (see 1903010046).
The only media item the FCC will tackle at its June 6 commissioners’ meeting concerns cable leased access rules, meaning action on relaxing kidvid rules isn’t likely until at least July, agency and industry officials told us this week. Broadcast industry officials and child advocates expect revamped kidvid regulations this summer. Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said last week he hopes “to be concluding” the kidvid proceeding “in the very near future.”
Grant Bryan Broadcasting’s petition for the FCC to allow AM stations to voluntarily transition to all-digital HD radio, commented NAB, posted Friday in RM-11836. “We agree with the Petitioner that all-digital AM service will allow broadcasters to provide substantially improved sound quality that could help AM stations to retain and attract listeners in the increasingly competitive audio marketplace.” There's broad support for the proposal among broadcasters, NAB said. The FCC should provide an incentive for AM stations to make the jump since HD Radio receiver penetration hasn’t reached 50 percent in any market, said engineering consulting firm Communications Technologies Inc. “Promptly” issue an NPRM on allowing a transition “on a voluntary basis under an expedited, simplified elective process,” said the California and Missouri broadcasters associations. Transmitting using all-digital MA3 mode as the petition suggests would help AM “achieve aural and visual parity with other services found in vehicle entertainment systems,” said Hubbard Radio.
DOJ’s recent successful court battle to require Florida company RM Broadcasting register as a foreign agent for arranging broadcasts of Russian state-owned media “demonstrates renewed effort” by the agency to enforce the Foreign Agents Registration Act, DOJ said Monday. The case was the first FARA civil enforcement action since 1991, and was decided in Florida federal court last week (in Pacer). DOJ had argued that by arranging broadcasts of Russian radio service Sputnik on WZHF(AM) Capitol Heights, Maryland, RM Broadcasting has been acting as an agent of Russian government-controlled news agency Rossiya Segodnya. RM sued DOJ in October and DOJ brought a counterclaim. Though RM Broadcasting had argued that it merely brokers the sale of airtime and had no part in content decisions, the court ruled last week that RM’s contract with Rossiya Segodnya requires it to perform a variety of services for the news agency that amount to acting as its agent. “The language of the Services Agreement contradicts RM Broadcasting’s assertion that it only buys and resells radio airtime,” said the judgment. RM Broadcasting’s attorney Nicole Waid, of FisherBroyles, said in an interview the company is evaluating options for an appeal. DOJ’s ramping up of FARA enforcement against broadcasters is a response to a 2016 Office of Inspector General report that identified FARA as an underutilized rule. So far, the agency has gone only after smaller companies such as RM Broadcasting and Reston Translator (see 1712040054), but FARA’s broad language could allow the agency to bring the same sort of enforcement actions against larger Internet and cable companies, Waid said. “Our concern is, where does it stop?” Waid said. “The American people have a right to know if a foreign flag waves behind speech broadcast in the United States,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers in the release.
Apollo Global Management hasn’t adequately demonstrated public interest benefits of its proposed purchase of stations from Northwest Broadcasting and Cox, the American TV Alliance (ATVA) commented and anticonsolidation groups petitioned to deny, in filings posted in docket 19-98 Monday (see 1903060078). The FCC should force Apollo to provide public interest justifications for the top-four duopolies and “quadropolies” that would result from the deal even though most of those combinations involve low-power TV stations or multicast channels, said ATVA. MVPD groups pushed the FCC to regulate top-four combinations of LPTV stations in recent comments on the 2018 quadrennial review. “If faced with an application for a full-power triopoly or quadropoly, the FCC would dismiss it out of hand,” ATVA said. Apollo seeks to use after-acquired clauses to raise the retransmission consent rates of all the Cox stations to match the higher rates currently enjoyed by the Northwest stations, ATVA said. “These price increases appear to be the main purpose of the transaction and why Apollo asked the Commission to approve its Northwest acquisition before its Cox acquisition.” Since it's a private equity firm, Apollo and subsidiary Terrier Media Buyer could “implement aggressive cost cutting strategies” that could include newsroom layoffs and homogenized programming, said Common Cause, Common Cause Ohio and the United Church of Christ jointly. Apollo’s filings “outlining vague putative public interest benefits and “corporate status as a private equity firm” don’t “suggest any commitment to localism,” the groups said. Darryl Beauford -- a viewer of Cox's WSB-TV Atlanta -- said the deal should be rejected because he was denied access to the station’s public file when he tried to view it in 2015 after complaining about the station’s content. “The conduct of WSB-TV is unbecoming of a trustee of the Community based on the fact that purposely, with full intention, violated this Core Regulation.” Beauford said. Cox and Apollo didn’t comment.