Filings by the Media and Democracy Project petitioning against the renewal of the license of WTXF Philadelphia have become repetitious and the FCC should conclude the proceeding, said Fox in an ex parte letter Monday posted in docket 23-293. “The FCC has been generous in allowing MAD to continue making filings well after the close of the formal pleading cycle,” said Fox. “Now that these filings have become entirely repetitious, both the Commission and the viewing public would be well-served by conclusion of this proceeding.” Recent MAD requests for the FCC to include filings and evidence related to lawsuits against the Fox network by shareholders and voting machine companies run counter to FCC rules, Fox said. The FCC’s character policy for licensees does not override language in the Communications Act limiting the agency’s review of a station’s license renewal to consideration of conduct by that station, Fox said. Fox and retiring Chairman Rupert Murdoch's family “are attempting to deny the FCC readily available information essential to the FCC making a ‘character qualification’ determination -- in effect, trying to pull the wool over the Commission's eyes,” MAD said in an email. “My takeaway from this filing is that the Murdochs and Fox really do not want the FCC and MAD to see the documents they produced in the Shareholder, Dominion and Smartmatic court cases -- obviously relevant documents, already on digital disks and easily produced,” said MAD supporter Preston Padden, a former Fox and Disney executive.

The FCC’s order creating a gradual phase-in of audio description rules to additional markets over 10 years (see 2310170070) will take effect Nov. 27, said a Media Bureau public notice posted Friday in docket 11-93.

Preliminary numbers for the 2023 NAB Show New York indicate 12,231attendees, a 28% increase over the prior year, said NAB in a news release Thursday. The event, held in the Javits Center, also featured 270 exhibitors. The 2024 show is slated for Oct. 8-10, the release said.

A proposed $25,000 forfeiture against a small radio broadcaster shows that stations need to recruit broadly and adhere to FCC equal employment opportunity rules, said Wiley broadcast attorney Kate Dickerson in an online post. The FCC enforcement bureau issued a notice of apparent liability earlier this month against Rocking M and Melia Media, two Kansas radio groups owned by Monte and Doris Miller. According to the NAL, the broadcaster late-filed EEO reports, didn’t recruit adequately for vacancies and failed to adequately document EEO recruitment efforts. The stations told the agency that their businesses were disrupted by COVID-19 and the departure of a CEO. “Relying on a licensee’s own private contacts, such as employee or client referrals, is not recruitment as contemplated under the Commission’s rules,” which require public outreach, the NAL said. “The lesson for broadcasters here is to use a variety of sources -- including online sources with a broad reach, such as Indeed, and more locally focused sources such as a college or university -- to advertise full-time job openings,” Dickerson wrote. A broadcaster should also “get in the habit of taking screenshots or retaining job-posting confirmation emails for each and every online source it utilizes,” said Dickerson. Broadcasters should also periodically review their recruitment sources, Dickerson said. “If the same sources are referring applicants over and over, the broadcaster should consider adding additional sources (preferably, local sources and sources targeted at relevant minority populations),” she wrote.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has rejected AM licensee Gerald Parks’ en banc appeal of the court’s denial of his petition for mandamus relief (see Ref:[2308110028]), said an order Tuesday. Parks has argued that the FCC is legally required to allow him to continue holding a broadcast license even though he didn’t file a 2020 renewal application on time.

The FCC should require Fox to produce documents about ad sales at WTXF-TV Philadelphia and evidence connected with lawsuits against Fox, said the Media and Democracy Project in an ex parte meeting with Media Bureau Chief Holly Saurer and other Media Bureau staff. Former FCC Chair Alfred Sikes, former Weekly Standard editor William Kristol and I Street Advocates attorney David Goodfriend attended the meeting in support of MAD, according to the filing posted Friday in docket 23-293. Goodfriend told us he was there as a volunteer and doesn’t legally represent MAD or any of the parties in the matter. The “public interest imperative” of WTXF’s license renewal requires review of “all the evidence from the Dominion and Smartmatic litigations, all documents reviewed in the four stockholder derivative lawsuits, and all documents and written communications from political advertisers requesting to purchase advertising” on WTXF, said the ex parte filing. “Granting the motion for production of documents is necessary to allow the FCC to make an informed decision on whether to set the WTXF renewal application for hearing,” the filing said. MAD's request for documents from lawsuits and proceedings that don't involve WTXF don't have "any support in the law or rules," said Fox in a filing Monday. "MAD seeks a wide-ranging public fishing expedition untethered from criteria relevant to a license renewal proceeding," Fox said. "Unfortunately for MAD, its preferred law is not that of the Commission’s, and a grant of MAD’s 'Motion' would prejudice not only Fox 29 Philadelphia, but also destabilize the integrity of the Commission’s broadcast license renewal process more broadly." The FCC should follow its own long-standing procedures, Fox said. The FCC is considered unlikely to grant the MAD petition.

The FCC unanimously approved an order Tuesday on expanding audio description requirements that had been set for Thursday’s commissioners' meeting. As expected (see 2310160038), the final item had little change from the draft version, and will phase in audio description requirements for an additional 10 designated market areas each year for 10 years, until the rules cover all 210 U.S. DMAs by 2035.

The window for new low-power FM applications will be delayed until Dec. 6 and the accompanying filing freeze extended to Dec. 13, the FCC Media Bureau said in a public notice in Tuesday’s Daily Digest. The window had been set to open Nov. 1. The bureau moved the window after a request from LPFM advocates who said the delay would lead to more participation. “We find that it would serve the public interest to delay the LPFM filing window by several weeks to afford interested parties sufficient time to prepare applications for new construction permits for this important service,” the bureau said. The LPFM window will now be Dec. 6-13, the PN said.

The full FCC approved a $2.3 million penalty against two New York City pirate radio operators, plus an $80,000 penalty for another pirate radio operator in La Grande, Oregon, according to two forfeiture orders released Friday. An FCC official confirmed that new Commissioner Anna Gomez voted on the items, though it's not clear if they were her first votes since being sworn in. The full commission -- then without Gomez -- approved two notices of apparent liability against the same offenders in March (see 2303150075). The $2.3 million forfeiture against Cesar Ayora and Luis Ayora in Queens, New York, stems from a series of violations going back to 2013. Their pirate station, called Radio Impacto2, ran on 105.5 FM for years despite an unpaid previous forfeiture order, repeated warnings and seized broadcast equipment, the order said. The station has a website advertising it as the official station for Ecuadorians in New York and it appears to still be operating. The NAL noted the station was operating in March. The Avoras and the station didn’t comment. The $80,000 penalty against La Grande, Oregon-based Thomas Barnes references pirate operations going back to 2018. Barnes refers to himself as “the Eastern Oregon pirate” in his content, including in audio posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, last week in which he claimed to still be broadcasting on the same FM station listed in his forfeiture order. The station's website also bills itself as Pirate Radio Eastern Oregon. Barnes couldn’t be reached for comment.

The FCC must dismiss a petition to deny the license renewal of Fox-owned WTXF-Philadelphia, said NAB and the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters in comments posted Thursday in docket 23-293 (see 2310100068). The petition, which pointed to false information aired by the Fox News cable channel about the 2020 election, “risks setting a factually, legally, and constitutionally suspect precedent to the potential future detriment of thousands of stations that serve their communities,” they said. An FCC renewal proceeding should be concerned with the conduct of the local station, but the petition from the Media and Democracy Project ignores WTXF, focusing on content that aired on Fox News and Dominion's defamation lawsuit over that cable programming, said the trade groups. “It appears that Petitioners targeted WTXF because it was the only pending license renewal application associated with Fox Television Stations, LLC, and not due to material actually aired by the station itself,” the filing said. The FCC’s news distortion policy doesn’t apply to any content outside the broadcast medium, and the defamation settlement with Dominion doesn’t meet the “heavy burden” required of petitions to deny, the broadcast groups said. The FCC should reject MAD’s “invitation to reinterpret the FCC’s character policies -- which apply to all broadcast licensees -- in the context of a single station’s license renewal proceeding,” said NAB and PAB. If the FCC seeks to reexamine its policies on charter qualifications it “should conduct a general notice and comment proceeding focused on those policies,” the groups said. MAD didn’t comment.