The House should reject FCC process reform legislation, former White House official Phil Weiser said in a letter Tuesday to House Commerce Committee leaders. The House was expected to vote on the GOP-sponsored HR-3309 on Tuesday (see separate report in this issue.) “Even with some worthy ideas in the legislation, the bill is deeply flawed for both failing to acknowledge the importance of the Commission’s progress on the key issues the bill addresses and for pressing some proposals that would give rise to most unfortunate and unintended consequences,” said Weiser, who worked in the Obama administration. Weiser said he “can see no reason other than delay to require a Notice of Inquiry before commencing a rulemaking.” And “the requirement that a regulation impose ‘no burden’ goes far past cost/benefit analysis and would invite litigation to define exactly what that new standard entails,” he said. The bill would also make it tougher for the FCC to work with the Justice Department, he said
DirecTV’s subscribers may lose access to all of Tribune’s 23 TV stations and its cable network WGN America if a looming retransmission consent contract expiration comes to fruition. Tribune’s TV stations in 16 markets began Monday telling the DBS company’s subscribers they may not be able to see those outlets on DirecTV when the retrans deal expires at midnight Saturday, the broadcaster said. “Despite our best efforts, DirecTV is refusing to offer a fair deal and we remain far apart in negotiations,” said President Nils Larsen of Tribune Broadcasting. “As a result of DirecTV’s inflexibility, there’s a strong likelihood that service interruptions will occur.” Tribune has “an obligation to make sure DirecTV subscribers are aware,” Larsen continued. DirecTV expects Tribune will “honor its 165-year history of serving the public interest and allow the stations to remain on as we continue to negotiate,” a spokesman for the DBS company said. “We believe Tribune’s local news and other programming is important to the public, have always compensated Tribune fairly and have no problem continuing to do so. We have absolutely no intention of denying anyone access to these stations, unless Tribune specifically demands it."
CEA and members lobbied the FCC for approval of a waiver (CD March 27 p4) the association requested last week of disabilities accessibility rules for Internet Protocol-enabled digital video players (DVP) and TVs made before July 1, 2016. Executives of the group, Panasonic, Samsung and Sony told Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau staffers of how those devices’ primary purpose isn’t advanced communications services, and so those products should be exempt. The agency should “find that the date first manufactured is equivalent to the date ‘introduced into the market'” for the waiver, a handout from the meeting said. “This clarification will provide greater certainty to manufacturers of IP-TVs and IP-DVPs as they determine when and for which models the requested waiver would apply.” A copy of the meeting handout was posted with the CEA’s ex parte filing Monday in docket 10-213 (http://xrl.us/bmzmeh).
Thomson Broadcast said it successfully tested the DVB-TV Lite broadcast standard at an interoperability event in France this month with several broadcasters, equipment makers and technology providers. “DVB-TV Lite is an important refinement of the DVB-T2 standard, and one that is absolutely crucial for the future of the industry,” said Jerome David, a strategic marketing manager at Thomson.
The FCC is reaching outside its headquarters to hire outside experts in auction theory and implementation as it prepares for a voluntary incentive auction of broadcast spectrum. The auction is expected to be the most complicated in the history of the agency. The FCC will lean on expertise from Auctionomics, staffed by leading economists including Paul Milgrom of Stanford University, and Jonathan Levin and Ilya Segal of Stanford University. The FCC also hired Power Auctions, led by Lawrence Ausubel, a University of Maryland economist and auction expert. “The knowledge and experience of this team will complement the substantial expertise of agency staff to meet these goals,” said Chairman Julius Genachowski.
Acme Communications said its board approved a special cash distribution of 22 cents per share of common stock, and a special distribution of the remaining 300,000 shares of LIN TV Corp. common stock it got in connection with LIN’s May purchase of some Acme stations. The proceeds to fund the cash distribution mainly came from the sale of its WBUW-TV Madison, Wis., in December and the settlement of some litigation against an ad rep firm that resulted in the release of about $1.2 million in escrowed funds, it said. “We believe our patience in selling assets has benefitted our shareholders and we will continue to be patient with our remaining assets, which consist solely of our duopoly in the Albuquerque-Santa Fe marketplace and our Daily Buzz production entity,” CEO Doug Gealy said.
Sinclair plans to merge two of its subsidiaries, an FCC application for a voluntary license transfer shows (http://xrl.us/bmzk5g). The company seeks permission to transfer control of the assets of Sinclair Media II Inc. to Sinclair Communications LLC, its parent subsidiary within Sinclair’s ownership structure, said an organizational chart filed with the application. Those assets are KUPN Licensee, LLC, WEAR Licensee, LLC, WSYX Licensee, LLC and WWHO Licensee, LLC. “The proposed merger is thus pro forma in nature and will not result in any substantial change in the beneficial ownership of the licensee,” the application said.
Arbitron reached a settlement with California’s attorney general and the city attorneys in Los Angeles and San Francisco over allegations the company’s Portable People Meter radio ratings data violated the state’s unfair competition law, false advertising law and civil rights act. “This settlement ensures that California’s diverse audiences will be fully counted by Arbitron’s ratings system and that broadcasters serving these communities will have the opportunity to compete fairly in the marketplace,” said Attorney General Kamala Harris. The settlement calls for Arbitron to pay $400,000 and step up its address-based panel recruitment activities by the end of this year. Arbitron will begin including “country of origin” as a standard demographic characteristic among Hispanic households in its panel, Harris’s office said. The commitments are generally consistent with Arbitron’s agreements with other states and are in force through Dec. 31, 2014, or until the company receives Media Ratings Council accreditation for the PPM data, whichever comes first, Arbitron said.
Asking job applicants to hand over Facebook login information would be prohibited under legislation to be introduced by Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., they said, following media reports the practice is widespread among some employers. They asked the Justice Department and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for legal opinions to “determine what protections currently exist and what additional protections are necessary” to safeguard applicant and employee privacy on social networking sites, the senators said Sunday (http://xrl.us/bmzk4o). In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, they said asking for login information and then accessing an applicant’s private information “may be unduly coercive and therefore constitute unauthorized access” under the Stored Communications Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Two courts, including the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, have ruled that supervisors can face civil liability under the SCA by requesting logins and then accessing employees’ private information, they told Holder: “The courts’ reasoning does not clearly distinguish between employees and applicants.” In a letter to Jacqueline Berrien, chairman of the EEOC, the senators said private social network information -- “religious views, national origin, family history, gender, marital status and age” -- accessed by an employer “may be impermissible to consider when making hiring decisions” and could be used to “unlawfully discriminate against otherwise qualified applicants.” Asking for such information directly would violate federal anti-discrimination law, and “under the guise of a background check may simply be a pretext for discrimination,” Blumenthal and Schumer said. “Employers have no right to ask job applicants for their house keys or to read their diaries,” Schumer said in a joint statement with Blumenthal. “Why should they be able to ... gain unwarranted access to a trove of private information about what we like, what messages we send to people, or who we are friends with?” said Schumer. The senators’ planned legislation would “fill any gaps in federal law” that allow employers to ask for such information, they said.
Ten-watt FM stations have advantages over higher-wattage low-power FM stations, two LPFM backers told the FCC. It last week proposed eliminating the LP10 class of service in favor of 100-watt stations (CD March 21 p11). “LP10 stations will be highly useful for community building and development in our inner city neighborhoods as well as for emergency operation,” longtime LPFM backers Nickolaus Leggett and Donald Schellhardt, who successfully sought creation of a low-power service, said in a filing Monday in docket 99-25 (http://xrl.us/bmzkyw). “The Commission may also want to authorize LP10 equipment as back-up equipment for low power FM stations that normally operate in the 100-Watt range (LP100s) or the 250-Watt range (LP250s)."