Congress should eliminate the FCC’s public interest authority because it's unconstitutional and based on an outdated view of the media marketplace, wrote Free State Foundation CEO Randolph May in a post Tuesday. “FCC commissioners from both political parties have invoked the public interest standard to threaten free speech rights.” Congress should overhaul the Communications Act to reflect modern changes to the media marketplace and remove the public interest authority in the process, he said. “I will concede that I am not optimistic that Congress will act anytime soon to do what I suggest here and have long recommended. But it could, and it should.”

The CBS News ombudsman has started accepting complaints about the network's coverage, according to the network's website. "Have feedback for the CBS News Ombudsman? Please reach out to ombudsman@cbsnews.com and the ombudsman will review your inquiry as soon as possible," it says.

National Religious Broadcasters CEO Troy Miller praised President Donald Trump and a preliminary ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in a news release Thursday. “We acknowledge with gratitude the tireless perseverance, strategic vision, and dedication of President Donald J. Trump and his administration in pushing forward a diplomatic path toward peace,” Miller said. “NRB has long been a steadfast champion of Israel and a vocal advocate for her right to live in peace and security in her biblical homeland.”

The FCC’s draft NPRM on ATSC 3.0 and a recent grant from the Department of Transportation to fund the Broadcast Positioning System pilot program (see 2510070016) show that “momentum is building” for the new standard, NAB said in a blog post Thursday. While the NPRM doesn’t take a side on NAB’s proposals for a mandatory transition starting in 2028 and for a 3.0 tuner mandate for TVs, it does tentatively propose doing away with the FCC’s "substantially similar" and simulcast requirements (see 2510070038). “In an important step forward, the [FCC] has proposed eliminating key barriers that have slowed broadcasters’ ability to bring viewers the full benefits of this cutting-edge technology,” NAB said. There are “more than 125 television stations in 77 markets reaching roughly 75% of viewers [that] are already broadcasting with the ATSC 3.0 standard,” the group noted. “We look forward to working with the Commission as it removes these barriers and establishes dates by which the broadcasting industry and viewers will take this exciting leap into the next generation of television.”

Broadcast standards association ATSC is “encouraged” by the FCC’s draft ATSC 3.0 NPRM, President Madeleine Noland said in an emailed statement Wednesday. “While we’re going through the many questions raised by the FCC in its draft document, ATSC believes it's good that conversations are underway and that the next phase of the transition is about to begin.” Moving to 3.0 will “allow broadcasters to enhance their ties to local viewers, with the capability to enhance emergency messages” and “improve accessibility for viewers.” The group doesn’t “advocate for specific positions” on what should happen with the transition, she added.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has awarded NAB a $744,000 contract to field test the Broadcast Positioning System (BPS) with Dominion Energy, NAB said in a news release Monday. BPS is based on ATSC 3.0 broadcasts' creation of a precise timestamp for the emission of each broadcast frame, which, along with the location of multiple ATSC 3.0 transmitters in a given area, can be used to calculate a position comparable in accuracy to GPS. “This first-of-its-kind field test is part of the federal government’s broader effort to develop resilient alternatives to GPS for position, navigation and timing services,” NAB's release said. The field test will take place in the Washington/Baltimore area, an industry official told us.

Nexstar's WDVM-TV Hagerstown, Maryland, has constructed a transmitter tower that lets it cover nearly 700,000 additional TV households in the greater Washington region, the company said Monday.

The FCC’s decision to shut down immediately after federal appropriations lapsed -- rather than continue operations, as it did during past shutdowns -- has created uncertainty for broadcasters, wrote Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorneys David Oxenford, David O’Connor and Keenan Adamchak in a blog post Friday. “In recent years, there was at least some time for broadcasters and others regulated by the FCC to get ready for the shutdown and get further guidance as to what would happen with respect to particular filing deadlines.” That isn’t so this time, the attorneys wrote. Although the agency has issued public notices on extending some deadlines, it's unclear how broadcasters should handle equal employment opportunity audit responses or major change applications, the blog post said. The FCC’s License Management System is offline during the shutdown, which means broadcasters also won’t be able to meet quarterly issues/programs list filing deadlines. “But will the FCC’s systems be able to handle a crush of filings due the first business day after the day that the government reopens?” the attorneys asked. “These are all questions that broadcasters should consider with their counsel.”

The regulatory structure that governs broadcasting “is an anachronism” and wouldn’t exist if it were a new technology introduced today, wrote Eric Fruits, a senior scholar for the International Center for Law & Economics, in a post Thursday for Truth on the Market. An emerging technology today wouldn't be subject to rules like retransmission consent, ownership caps and the public interest standard, he said. “The idea that a panel of three to five presidentially appointed FCC commissioners in Washington can better determine the ‘public interest’ than the public itself -- through its viewing choices in a competitive market -- is a relic of progressive-era central planning,” Fruits said. “In reality, the vague standard invites regulatory capture and rent seeking, where politically connected groups lobby the FCC to define the public interest in ways that benefit them, rather than the public at-large.”

Radio Communications Corp. (RCC) is seeking U.S. Supreme Court review of its challenge of the FCC’s implementation of the 2023 Low Power Protection Act (LPPA), which a U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit three-judge panel unanimously rejected in June (see 2506270043). The FCC’s LPPA order allowed low-power TV stations fulfilling certain criteria set by Congress to upgrade to Class A status. Though the FCC’s order used nearly identical language to the LPPA, RCC has repeatedly argued that the FCC mistook Congress’ intent. RCC had argued the LPPA's requirement that eligible stations operate in a designated market area (DMA) with not more than 95,000 TV households was misinterpreted by the FCC, and it actually meant the upgrades should be available based on the size of a station’s community of license. The D.C. Circuit disagreed. “Nowhere in the statute does Congress reference ‘community of license,’ nor are communities of license equivalent systems to DMAs,” said the June opinion. “RCC’s convoluted reading of these statutory provisions is plainly incorrect.” In its petition for certiorari, RCC said the D.C. Circuit opinion and FCC order gave NAB and full-power broadcasters “speculative third-party regulatory relief” by not letting more LPTV stations upgrade to Class A status. The D.C. Circuit opinion “twists the LPPA into knots, ignoring basic statutory interpretive rules, for the improper purpose of protecting NAB’s Full Power clients, the entities the LPPA seeks to constrain,” RCC said. The petition accuses the FCC of acting on NAB’s behalf, though the agency’s order implementing the LPPA stuck narrowly to the text of the statute. “Federal agencies are not alter egos for trade associations,” RCC said.