Entravision Communications, ZGS Communications and public interest groups the Media Alliance and The Hispanic Institute joined new broadcaster coalition TVfreedom.org, the organization said in a press release Monday (http://bit.ly/1obSU7N). “In the retransmission debate, the critical voice of the Latino consumer has been lost,” said Hispanic Institute President Gus West. TVfreedom, formed last week by a collection of broadcaster associations and network affiliate groups, said in its introductory press release that its goal is to hold multichannel video programming distributors “accountable” for programming blackouts and rising cable bills.
NAB urged the FCC to update its broadcast ownership regulations and stressed the importance of the current retransmission consent system to TV viewers. The ability to negotiate in the marketplace for the value of the broadcast signal “is critical to broadcasters’ provision of the quality and quantity of programming that viewers expect from their local television broadcast stations,” it said in a ex parte filing in dockets 09-182 and 10-71 (http://bit.ly/1bxcFy0). NAB also urged the FCC to reform its license renewal application processes for stations to provide greater certainty and timely action on pending applications, it said. The filing pertained to a meeting with staff from Commissioner Mike O'Rielly’s office.
The FCC Media Bureau extended to March 20 the reply comment deadline in the proceeding on AM revitalization. The original deadline, Feb. 18, was extended by 30 days, the bureau said in a public notice (http://bit.ly/1bxadHS). The Association of Federal Communications Consulting Engineers requested a 60-day extension (CD Feb 7 p18). The bureau granted AFCCE’s request in part, it said.
NAB repeated its stance on the retransmission consent model, broadcast ownership rules and the upcoming broadcast spectrum incentive auctions, during a meeting with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, his staff, Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake and Gary Epstein of the Incentive Auction Task Force. The FCC lacks statutory authority to compel broadcasters to permit pay-TV operators to resell over-the-air broadcast signals to subscribers, NAB said in an ex parte filing in dockets 09-182, 10-71 and 13-249 (http://bit.ly/1dthmZj). On the incentive auctions, NAB offered to meet with FCC staff “to test and refine repacking scenarios that will achieve the statutory goal of preserving broadcast coverage areas while successfully recovering spectrum for wireless broadband service,” it said. NAB urged the FCC to take a realistic look at its ownership restrictions in the current media market. The record before the FCC “contains many examples of joint sales and shared services arrangements among broadcasters that have produced clear public benefits,” it said.
The Association of Federal Communications Consulting Engineers requested a 60-day extension of the reply comments deadline in docket 13-249. Due to the inclement weather and scheduling conflicts, the committee formed by the AFCCE to generate reply comments needs more time to review initial comments filed, AFCCE said in its request (http://bit.ly/N8KOyH). Reply comments on revitalization of the AM band are due Feb. 18.
NAB and the Committee on Local Television Audience Measurement (COLTAM) passed a resolution supporting more accurate local TV measurement. NAB and COLTAM urged the Nielsen ratings system to delay implementation of hybrid measurement, methodology and technology “until it can be fully tested in the marketplace,” NAB said in a press release (http://bit.ly/LUhUS3). They also urged Nielsen to “increase its sample size in local TV markets to make ‘broadband-only homes’ additive to its samples beyond 2014,” it said.
NAB met with officials from the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology to discuss how interference between TV stations and wireless services will be predicted, said an ex parte filing released Thursday (http://bit.ly/1eC6Aof). The broadcast association “sought clarification” on the technological assumptions made by the OET methodology for calculating such interference, the proposed use of the “Longley-Rice propagation prediction model” and the “use and application of a clutter loss factor” for different interference situations, the filing said.
The current record on how cross-media ownership would affect minorities is “inadequate,” said officials from the United Church of Christ Office of Communication and the Institute of Public Representation in a meeting Monday with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s media aide Maria Kirby, said an ex parte filing released Thursday (http://bit.ly/1khXnFx). The FCC will need more hard data to meet the standards for such rules imposed by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the Prometheus II decision, said the groups. The commission must “conduct analysis of the impact of its media ownership rules on women and people of color before it takes any action to relax those rules,” said the filing. The commission’s previously collected Form 323 data doesn’t provide such analysis because it’s disorganized and out of date, the filing said. “Only a data collection of the intensity of the Critical Information Needs studies would be adequate,” said the filing. The commission should base its decisions in the 2010 or 2014 Quadrennial Review on data collected from such studies, the filing said. Commission inaction on joint sales agreements and shared service agreements (SSAs) “invites broadcasters to quickly usher through as many of these arrangements as possible and then, in the event of later Commission action, to grandfather in the transactions, creating perverse incentives.” The FCC should make a tentative finding that SSAs undermine the goals of the ownership rules and provide notice of upcoming action, subjecting parties to possible unwinding of their arrangements, the filing said.
NAB wants the FCC not to “look at one narrow issue -- specifically, the regulatory treatment of joint agreements between television stations -- in a vacuum, as somehow separate from its rules regulating the ownership structures of all” TV stations, the association said executives told aides to Commissioner Mike O'Rielly. Chairman Tom Wheeler’s office has been working on a draft order to make joint services agreements, when a broadcaster brokers more than 15 percent of another station’s ad time, attributable under ownership rules to the brokering station (CD Jan 30 p1). The agency should “complete its statutorily-mandated quadrennial ownership reviews in a timelier manner,” said NAB in the meeting, according to a filing posted Tuesday in docket 09-182 (http://bit.ly/1fHDunP). It said pay-TV providers’ “rising share of local advertising is fueled in part by joint advertising sales arrangements,” so it “would be both anticompetitive and fundamentally unfair to prevent or restrict” stations, “but not their direct competitors, from selling advertising time jointly.” The last quadrennial media ownership review was due in 2010, under the Telecom Act, but not yet completed.
The FCC Media Bureau issued notices of apparent liability to Pollack/Belz of Tennessee, Northeastern Illinois University, Aerco Broadcasting Corp. of Puerto Rico, and Word of God Fellowship in Arkansas. The bureau proposed a $2,400 fine for Pollack for failing to timely file its renewal of broadcast station license application for KLAX-TV, Alexandria, La., the bureau said in a notice of apparent liability (http://bit.ly/1brH5BC). Word of God is apparently liable for a $2,400 fine for the same violation for its station KWBM-TV, Harrison, Ark., the bureau said (http://bit.ly/1e473ea). For failing to retain all required documentation in the public inspection file of WZRD(FM) Chicago, NIU is apparently liable for a $1,000 fine (http://bit.ly/1irAk7k), and the bureau proposed a $20,000 fine to Aerco for a series of violations, including failing to file the quarterly TV issues and program lists of WSJU-TV, San Juan, Puerto Rico (http://bit.ly/1dqZMFi). Also, the Enforcement Bureau issued Steckline Communications two $21,000 fines for failing to maintain required directional patterns within prescribed parameters for its Wichita, Kan., AM stations, KGSO and KQAM. Steckline also failed to operate the stations within authorized power limits and maintain complete public inspection files, the orders said (http://bit.ly/1kdYFBs, http://bit.ly/1bvLDtZ). The Media Bureau reduced the fine for Pentecostal Revival Association from $15,000 to $6,500, for its low-power TV station WJGV-CD in Palatka, Fla., bureau said on reconsideration (http://bit.ly/1lBhYGf). PRA was originally fined $15,000 for failure to timely file the station’s Children’s Television Programming Reports and to report the violations in its renewal application, the bureau said. In its response, the licensee provided financial documentation in an effort to support its argument that it cannot pay the original forfeiture amount, the bureau said.