The FCC Enforcement Bureau adopted a consent decree to settle allegations that KRXA(AM) Carmel Valley, Calif., violated sponsorship identification laws and indecency laws. The FCC investigated a complaint that the station broadcast a regularly scheduled call-in program “without disclosing that the host had paid the station to appear,” the bureau said in an order (http://bit.ly/Qm5J2g). The commission also received a complaint that indecency laws were violated based on language used by that show’s host, it said. The station is to be sold to a nonprofit broadcaster, the bureau said. Due to financial hardship, KRXA will pay $15,000 to resolve the allegations, it said. If the station isn’t sold, KRXA will implement a three-year compliance plan, the bureau said. The consent decree resolves and terminates the bureau’s investigation, it said.

Graham Holdings and Berkshire Hathaway finalized an agreement (CD March 21 p13) for Berkshire to buy a wholly owned subsidiary of Graham Holdings that includes WPLG Miami, Berkshire shares held by Graham, and cash, in exchange for 1.6 million shares of Graham stock currently owned by Berkshire, said the media company in a news release Friday (http://bit.ly/1qJ24ai). It said the specific number of shares and cash in the deal will be determined on the closing date based on “certain factors, including the market prices of the shares of both companies at that time.” A report in The Washington Post, formerly owned by Graham Holdings, said the deal is intended to save the two companies $675 million in income taxes (http://wapo.st/1kCPVWN).

Initial comments on an FCC rulemaking notice seeking input on whether to eliminate or modify network non-duplication and syndicated exclusivity rules are due May 12. Replies are due June 9, the FCC said in a Federal Register notice Thursday (http://1.usa.gov/1hlg8pH). The FCC started the proceeding last month to address changes in the video market (CD April 1 p11).

An FCC Media Bureau public notice (PN) on the increased scrutiny facing transactions involving sharing arrangements released in March violates the Administrative Procedure Act and abuses the bureau’s delegated authority, said NAB General Counsel Jane Mago in a letter to the FCC released by NAB Thursday (http://bit.ly/1hE9INr). The processing guidelines, which warned that TV deals involving both joint sales agreements (JSAs) and financial arrangements between stations such as first refusal purchase rights and one company guaranteeing the loans of another would receive “careful scrutiny,” was seen by many as a warning that any such deals would not be approved (CD March 14 p). Issued two weeks before the FCC vote to make JSAs attributable, the PN was “unreasoned, premature, and inconsistent with longstanding Commission policies, objectives, and existing regulations,” said NAB. The additional documentation and extra scrutiny mentioned in the PN “are substantive requirements that change existing law, not mere processing guidelines,” and “constitute legislative rules that can only be adopted pursuant to notice and comment,” said NAB. Since the bureau had traditionally approved transactions involving JSAs on delegated authority, changing that standard is “novel” and requires a decision at the commission level, NAB said. When the processing guidelines were issued, several attorneys told us one likely reason for the move was to make it harder to go to the courts for companies whose transactions involving JSAs stalled at the Media Bureau level, since the bureau would be able to sit on an application rather than explicitly deny it. Without an actual denial, it’s more difficult to get a court to take action, the attorneys said. That kind of “shell game” is “inappropriate and unacceptable,” NAB said. The PN also doesn’t cite enough evidence or precedent as basis for the change, making it “arbitrary and capricious,” NAB said. “We encourage the Bureau to withdraw the Public Notice and eliminate the improper pressure on -- and de facto rule against -- the broadcast transactions at issue,” said NAB.

Details were scarce at our deadline about the outcome of the multi-group meeting Thursday in Las Vegas that organizers had convened to get the ball rolling on talks to standardize high-dynamic-range (HDR) content and displays. Word of the meeting involving delegates from the Advanced Television Systems Committee, CEA, NCTA, and the Society of Motion Picture and TV Engineers was disclosed by a senior executive at Harmonic, who described the lack of HDR standards as perhaps Ultra HD’s “biggest roadblock.” Of the groups we canvassed for comment on the meeting and the lack of HDR standardization that brought it about, only ATSC President Mark Richer responded with a statement that addressed the HDR issue, if only in the most general terms. “HDR is one of the many issues being considered in the development of ATSC 3.0,” Richer said. “The industry recognizes that there are many technical parameters in addition to total pixel count that determines perceived quality. Since ATSC is focused on the standardization of the transmission to the home, a lot will depend on the plans of the production and consumer electronics industries.” At the NAB Show, the chairwoman of the ATSC’s “S34” specialist group responsible for ATSC 3.0’s audio and video codecs, closed captioning and its other “applications and presentations” said her group would “definitely” study HDR, but she said little more on the subject (CD April 8 p11). Brian Markwalter, CEA senior vice president-research and standards, declined comment on HDR standards. Recently, he said there was much industry “discussion” taking place about getting together this year and devising more up-to-date Ultra HD definitions, logos and certifications than was possible when CEA adopted its Ultra HD nomenclature in fall 2012, but whether that update effort would involve studying HDR standards remains to be seen. At NCTA, “we don’t really have any comment on the HDR standards issue as it is early on with this topic,” said a spokeswoman by email.

Attendance at the 2014 NAB Show rose 4 percent to 98,015 from last year, while exhibit space sales were up 7 percent to 945,000 net square feet, said the association in a news release Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1elbkl0). Those percentage increases were less than the square footage increase last year over 2012, and more than attendance rose last year (CD April 12 p15).

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s suggestion in a NAB Show speech that broadcasters shift their focus to an over-the-top (OTT) model focused on offering local news (CD April 9 p1) is “off target,” said NAB Executive Vice President-Strategic Planning Rick Kaplan in a blog post Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1g8ZHvE). “A future that gives even more power to the incredibly consolidated and exceedingly powerful cable and wireless industries -- one that puts them as our gatekeepers -- sounds like a future that ultimately only disrupts broadcasters.” Wheeler should have focused on broadcasting’s “superior transmission system” as the way to disrupt multichannel video programming distributors, said Kaplan. “The chairman does not see, as many broadcasters do, a game-changing value in our one-to-many architecture,” he said. “It is not lost on many broadcasters that the chairman’s vision happens to fit nicely into two of his three highest priorities: the spectrum incentive auction and the open Internet.” Wheeler said the potential of a shift to OTT means broadcasters should support an open Internet to keep ISPs from blocking their signals, and suggested the incentive auction as a useful source of capital to fund the pivot to over the top. “To what degree the chairman’s vision is truly comprehensive or instead a clever way of convincing broadcasters to support his legacy items is anyone’s guess,” Kaplan said. Although Wheeler characterized the incentive auction as a one-time opportunity that’s unlikely to be repeated, broadcasters don’t believe the value of their spectrum will decrease “anytime soon,” Kaplan said. Broadcasting’s “unique and spectrally efficient delivery system” should be a focus of the National Broadcast Plan advocated at the NAB Show by NAB CEO Gordon Smith, Kaplan said. That plan shouldn’t “shrink broadcasting into a mere Web service,” Kaplan said. “For a chairman whose watchwords are ‘competition, competition, competition,’ his remarks conspicuously overlooked meaningful intermodal competition in the delivery of video content."

21st Century Fox wants the FCC to renew the license of WWOR-TV Secaucus, N.J., a lawyer at the company reported telling an aide to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, during a meeting held at the request of Wheeler’s office. The agency had probed whether the company then called News Corp. had made misrepresentations over the contested license renewal of the station, required to carry news serving the northern New Jersey audience and not just its community of license as with all other U.S. TV stations (CD Feb 18/11 p6). WWOR “served the tastes, needs and interests of Northern New Jersey throughout the preceding term of its license,” said a 21st Century Fox filing posted Monday in docket 07-260 (http://bit.ly/PNzFEC). “The Commission consistently has made clear that WWOR-TV’s public service obligation is no different in kind or degree than any other station’s obligation, except that WWOR-TV historically was tasked with serving the area of Northern New Jersey within its service contour.” The agency doesn’t “sit in judgment of a broadcast licensee’s editorial discretion,” 21st Century Fox’s lawyer reported having told Wheeler’s aide.

Total viewing of VOD prime-time TV content rose 24 percent in 2013, said an industry research firm Tuesday. Rentrak said that as of Dec. 31, two-thirds of broadcast prime-time and of cable-network shows were watched after the third day that the program was originally shown, which is outside the so-called C3 audience rating time period. That provides “the opportunity to generate untold millions in additional advertising dollars for VOD,” said the firm in a news release (http://bit.ly/1qgzYVv). It said an average of 43.3 million TVs last year accessed VOD content, with almost nine hours of time spent viewing a month.

Nonprofit backers of broadcast political ad sales disclosure cheered an FCC Media Bureau public notice that fans and foes of such disclosure said (CD April 8 p5) signals the FCC won’t retreat from making all TV stations put online what’s in their political-ad paper files July 1. It’s an “Important Step for Transparency in Political Advertising,” said the headline in a Campaign Legal Center news release Monday (http://bit.ly/1hdp8x4). It lets “a little more sunshine breakthrough [sic] in the multi-billion dollar business of political advertising, despite pushback from some FCC licensees,” said CLC Policy Director Meredith McGehee. The Public Interest Public Airwaves Coalition, which had opposed broadcaster proposals for stations to provide less information to the FCC than what’s available for public inspection in their main studios, “recognizes the dominant role that television plays in our nation’s political contests,” said the coalition in the CLC release. “By putting already public information online, the FCC will ensure that anyone who wants access can get it,” said Lisa Rosenberg, government affairs consultant for the Sunlight Foundation, another coalition member. It’s a “small and inconsequential price for TV stations for the millions in additional revenue they get” from political ads, said Chairman Charles Benton of the Benton Foundation, a coalition member.