ABC, AMC, Discovery and radio group Meruelo agreed to pay the FCC combined more than $600,000 in settlements over misuse of emergency alert system and wireless emergency alert tones, the Enforcement Bureau announced Thursday with a news release, four consent decrees and an advisory on the rules around using alert tones. All four offenders agreed to institute compliance plans to avoid repeat violations. “Use of actual or simulated EAS tones during non-emergencies and outside of proper testing or public service announcements is a serious public safety concern,” the release said. ABC’s infractions took place during an October segment of Jimmy Kimmel Live! ridiculing the 2018 nationwide test of WEA and presidential alerts. The segment involved faked wireless alerts from President Donald Trump -- per a New York Times article cited as a way the regulator learned of the infraction -- but apparently used real recorded WEA tones. ABC will pay $395,000 for the violation. AMC used EAS tones twice on a February episode of The Walking Dead, the decree said. An FCC employee who had watched the episode first reported it. AMC has agreed to $104,000. Meruelo included EAS tones among a number of other sound effects in an audio promotion it aired numerous times, and agreed to pay $67,000. A Discovery camera crew filming Lone Star Law caught footage and audio of a real WEA connected with Hurricane Harvey being received by the show’s subjects and included it in an episode. Discovery has agreed to pay $68,000. “False, fraudulent, or unauthorized use of the emergency alert system or wireless emergency alert codes or attention signals is strictly prohibited,” said the enforcement advisory.

Of 140 tariff subheadings CTA urged the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative June 17 to remove from List 4, the association won 37 deferrals to Dec. 15 in key product areas like smartphones, laptops and tablets and PC monitors when the final lists were released Tuesday (see 1908130058). The rest face 10 percent levies when the duties on the newly configured List 4A take effect Sept. 1. JLab Audio didn't get reprieve now. CEO Win Cramer was hit like “a kick in the gut,” he emailed us. He's “unsure and confused” why USTR “decided at one point to agree with us” earlier that Bluetooth headphones didn’t belong on the tariffs list “and then turn course,” he said. USTR didn’t comment Wednesday.

AT&T and T-Mobile said they're now delivering secure handling of asserted information using tokens (Shaken) and secure telephone identity revisited (Stir) caller authentication technology “that works across both their networks, an important step towards industry-wide call verification.” The FCC wants major carriers to implement the technology this year (see 1907110023). “Unwanted robocalls aren’t slowing down but caller verification can help customers better decide which calls they answer or ignore,” said a Wednesday news release. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai praised the development.

TVs that users can power on by voice can use many times more energy while resting, reported the Natural Resources Defense Council. Sony, Vizio and Westinghouse TVs that can be awakened and controlled via voice commands had standby power levels above 20 watts in tests with smart speakers, NRDC found. TVs from LG, Samsung and TCL that users could control, not wake, via voice had standby levels under 1 watt. The higher-energy-using sets that had updates after the fall tests used less power in standby, the green advocate found. LG Electronics Senior Vice President John Taylor emailed us: “NRDC and LG Electronics are both looking out for energy-conscious consumers.” He said that underscores NRDC’s tests showed “very low standby power levels -- approximately 1 Watt.” The combined feature of waking and controlling a TV by voice is in early stages, but NRDC expects it to become more prevalent in 2019 models due on the market this half. “If this trend continues and manufacturers fail to optimize their televisions for low standby power levels when linked to smart speakers, we could see large increases in national energy consumption,” it said. The extra electricity use would add $1.3 billion-$2.5 billion to U.S. household electric bills, it said. The group cited Amazon’s Fire TV dongle as a low-standby power engineering solution that can act as a network proxy waking the TV from low-power sleep via HDMI-CEC. Acknowledging increased cost that would mean for TV makers, NRDC hopes manufacturers add the capability on a chip “for little cost in the system as smart speaker use gains market penetration.” Amazon provides low-power reference designs manufacturers can leverage to develop Alexa-enabled products with low standby power, and other voice assistant developers “may provide low-power reference designs as well,” said NRDC: “The ball is in the court of the TV manufacturers.” Sony and Vizio didn’t comment. A Westinghouse spokesperson emailed that the WA50UFA1001, which used the Amazon Fire operating system, was an "old model developed in 2016/17 that is no longer being produced." Westinghouse's newer products have "improved dramatically" on power consumption in standby mode from when the Fire TV was developed, she said. Also Monday, a cable study showed that industry making progress on green goals (see 1908120051). Tuesday, another report showed set-top box progress on similar aspirations (see 1908130030).

C Spire's petition saying an FCC modification of a commercial TV station's market to add communities makes that outlet and all its broadcast streams local for reciprocal retransmission negotiations in those communities (see 1906040031) is either an attempt to use the agency to disrupt the network-affiliate relationship or a reflection of changing video market realities. Those were clashing broadcaster/MVPD arguments this week in docket 19-159 replies. C Spire and MVPD allies are trying "to hoodwink" the FCC into an "unprecedented [and] unlawful" level of government intrusion into retransmission consent and network affiliation agreements through its petition, NAB said. It said the pay-TV provider is trying to get the FCC to rewrite its retransmission consent agreement with Gray, while the declaratory ruling would only reiterate what MVPDs and broadcasters understand to be their good faith negotiation obligations after a market modification. CBS said what C Spire seeks -- a ruling that rules bar any restriction in a network affiliation agreement on a station’s ability to grant retrans -- could violate congressional content because it might significantly disrupt the relationship between a broadcast network and its affiliated stations, it said. Network affiliation agreements routinely and legitimately include obligations or restrictions, it said. Such a declaratory ruling would require a new rule and would have to go through FCC rulemaking processes first, Tegna said. Congress voiced concern broadcasters could use retrans agreements to limit MVPDs carrying signals that became local through the market modification process, so clearly a station can't condition a retrans grant for a local station in a market modification area on an MVPD either carrying or not carrying a non-commonly owned station, C Spire said. Affiliate consolidation, geographic restrictions in network affiliation agreements and dual big-four affiliations via multicast programming streams are distorting efforts to preserve localism and access to in-state programming, with those changes pointing to affiliation agreements involving retrans of stations found to be local following a market modification now are violating good-faith rules, the company said. Backing C Spire's petition, Pine Belt Communications said it also has video subscribers in an out-of-state designated market area and has had similar difficulties getting retrans consent to deliver local or significantly viewed stations. It said rural cable operators know well how DMA boundaries are broadcaster leverage in retrans negotiations in violation of good-faith rules. Along with its petition, C Spire filed a related retrans complaint against Gray.

The Technological Advisory Council meets Sept. 18 at 10 a.m. in the Commission Meeting Room, the FCC said Monday. TAC last met in June, its first meeting since it was rechartered (see 1906240049).

Oregon joined 15 other state attorneys general suing to stop T-Mobile from buying Sprint. “If left unchallenged, the current plan will result in reduced access to affordable wireless service in Oregon -- and higher prices,” Oregon AG Ellen Rosenblum (D) said Monday in a New York AG news release. The 16 states have nearly half the U.S. population, said New York AG Letitia James (D). T-Mobile didn’t comment. Earlier this month, Texas AG Ken Paxton became the first Republican to join (see 1908050029). T-Mobile/Sprint told the FCC there's no reason to further delay the agency's order approving their deal. The Rural Wireless Association and NTCA (see 1908070059) and the Wireless ISP Association asked the FCC last week to seek additional comment. “Petitioners have articulated no credible basis that could plausibly justify yet another delay in Commission action in this proceeding,” T-Mobile and Sprint filed, posted Monday in docket 18-197. “License transfer applications associated with the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint were filed on June 18, 2018.”

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should deny review of Portland, Oregon's challenge of an FCC ban on local moratoriums on wireless infrastructure deployments, said respondents (in Pacer) Thursday in Portland v. FCC, No. 18-72689. The orders are “fully consistent with Congress’s decision to preserve local zoning authority” and don’t raise significant constitutional concerns, they said.

The FCC established an Enforcement Bureau Fraud Division, tasked with taking enforcement actions against fraud in the USF and other funding programs that the agency oversees, says a notice set for Monday’s Federal Register. The FCC approved the division’s establishment in January (see 1902040037). Using existing Enforcement Bureau staff, the division will work with the Office of Inspector General and other law enforcement agencies, says the notice.

A U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California, erred in moving a complaint back to state court after defendant Cox Communications had it moved to federal court under the Class Action Fairness Act, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a docket 19-55658 opinion Thursday. In the opinion written by Judge Milan Smith and joined by Judges Michelle Friedland and Michael Simon, the 9th Circuit said Cox didn't have to prove all of the plaintiffs in the class-action claim about its advertised internet speeds -- initially filed in state court in California -- would be from California, and that its belief that would be the case was sufficient to challenge state court jurisdiction. Plaintiff's outside counsel didn't comment Friday.