The FCC Media Bureau won’t “just roll over and abandon” its new scrutiny on deals involving sharing agreements and contingent financial arrangements in the face of the NAB’s court challenge (CD May 13 p3), said Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford in a blog post Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1stwVbH). “The NAB gave the FCC several chances to do so by writing letters stating its objections to the application of the policy, and all were ignored,” Oxenford said. The challenge of the FCC policy will be closely watched by all companies involved in shared services agreements and those with deals involving potential SSAs, said Oxenford.

Gannett will buy six Texas TV stations from London Broadcasting for $215 million, Gannett said in a news release Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1qDGCZv). The purchase will provide new markets for Gannett’s digital marketing services group and further Gannett’s “transformation into a diversified multi-media company,” said Gannett CEO Gracia Matore in the release. The new stations are expected to generate around $50 million revenue in 2014, the release said. After the closing, current London Broadcasting Chief Operating Officer Phil Hurley will jump to Gannett to lead the six stations, the release said. The deal is not expected to run afoul of FCC ownership rules, a Gannett spokesman told us. The stations involved are NBC affiliate KCEN-TV Temple, CBS affiliate KYTX Longview, ABC affiliate KIII Corpus Christi, NBC affiliate KBMT Beaumont and its digital sub-channel KJAC, Fox affiliate KXVA Abilene and KIDY San Angelo, Gannett said. The deal is expected to close this summer, Gannett said.

Auction 84 ended Tuesday with $891,500 in provisionally winning bids. Ten of the 22 AM construction permits (CP) to be auctioned were sold, according to the FCC auction results (http://fcc.us/1opfP0Y). Alexander Broadcasting won a CP in Stony Point Town, New York, for $409,000, and Levine/Schwab Partnership won a CP in Culver City, California, for $409,000, the FCC said. Other CPs were won in Montoursville, Pennsylvania; Micanopy, Florida; and Spring Valley, Nevada. Unsold markets include Lebanon, Tennessee; Colorado Springs; and Lovelock, Nevada. Five CPs sold for the minimum bid and the remaining five sold after active bidding, a broadcast attorney said. While the lack of interest may be attributable in some measure to the much-reported disadvantages to which the AM industry is subject, other factors certainly came into play, Fletcher Heald attorney Raymond Quianzon said in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1hKeElq). The only eligible bidders were applicants who had filed applications in 2004, he said. After 10 years of waiting, “it’s understandable that applicants may have lost their lust for an AM in, say, Kuna, Idaho ... or Windsor, Va.,” he said.

The FCC Media Bureau proposed fining four stations that allegedly failed to file children’s TV programming reports in a timely manner. The bureau proposed a $15,000 fine for KYUS-TV Miles City, Montana, owned by KYUS Broadcasting, it said in a notice of apparent liability (http://bit.ly/1ltPuLV). The bureau proposed a $3,000 fine each for Spanish Television of Denver-owned KTFD-DT Boulder, Colorado (http://bit.ly/1mVvYr2), Gray Television-owned WCAV-TV Charlottesville, Virginia (http://bit.ly/1jY0tNG), and K36DB-CD, a Vail, Colorado, Class A station owned by Resort Television (http://bit.ly/1iPwcQR).

The FCC Media Bureau sent letters to 11 stations Monday requiring they respond to complaints against them alleging political file violations. The Campaign Legal Center and Sunlight Foundation filed the complaints against stations owned by Gannett, Scripps and others (CD May 2 p6). “We take political file complaints seriously and anticipate resolving these quickly,” said Chairman Tom Wheeler in a news release Monday (http://bit.ly/1mOK8yz). “I hope this serves as a reminder to all stations of their obligation to maintain political files in accordance with statutory provisions and our Rules.” The bureau concluded that further information is necessary to resolve this matter, it wrote the 11 stations. The licensee “must indicate whether the referenced documents comply in all other respects with the Commission’s statutes and rules and, if not, explain why” by May 27,it said. Stations might consider “developing internal systems to minimize omissions of required data from political advertising documentation,” said Fletcher Heald attorney Howard Weiss in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1iGyEVz). The possibility of such complaints should provide a strong incentive for all TV stations “to take steps to tighten up that end of their operation to the extent possible,” he said.

NPR supports a more restrained FCC enforcement policy to address the uncertainty faced by public radio stations and other producers reporting on matters of public concern. The FCC’s “fleeting utterance” approach “has led to unnecessary and protracted delays in the processing of station license applications,” NPR said in an ex parte filing in dockets 12-106, 13-86 and 13-249 (http://bit.ly/1mSkGnm). NPR reiterated its position that the current waiver system works well for noncommercial radio stations concerning the use of on-air time to raise funds for third-party nonprofit organizations, it said. The FCC’s proposal to allow noncommercial educational stations to interrupt programming for this purpose raises “serious operational, fundraising and other concerns,” it said. NPR also continued to support revitalizing the AM band, including opening an FM translator filing window for AM station licensees, it said.

Howard Stirk Holdings (HSH) removed WLYH-TV, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, from its request for an FCC joint sales agreement waiver, said an ex parte filing Monday (http://bit.ly/1jTo7ea). HSH had planned to acquire the station from Nexstar as part of a multistation deal with Sinclair that’s conditional on the waiver request being granted. The portion of the deal involving WLYH has been terminated, HSH said. As the deal now stands, HSH would buy WMMP(TV) Charleston, South Carolina, and WABM(TV) Birmingham, Alabama, and operate them under sharing arrangements with Sinclair, but only if a waiver of the FCC’s new rules that would attribute ownership of the stations to Sinclair is granted, said HSH. It said granting the waiver would promote the FCC’s goals of “serving the public interest in competition, diversity and local programming, and advances the public interest, convenience and necessity."

The FCC should ensure that translators are protected during the post-incentive auction repacking process, said NAB in an ex parte filing Friday (http://bit.ly/1jIOMKI). Not doing so would reduce the coverage area of full-power stations, violating the spectrum act’s directive that the commission “make all reasonable efforts” to preserve broadcaster coverage area in the auction, NAB said. “Failure to consider translators would be contrary to the plain text of the Spectrum Act and fifty years of Congressional and Commission policy,” NAB said. “This result would be arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law."

The LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition cited three potential areas of appeal on the broadcast spectrum incentive auction. If the FCC chooses not to include low-power TV in the auction, it should be obligated to provide a substantial economic analysis of the impacts on LPTV licensees left out of the auction, “the economic impacts of LPTV in the auction, and the impact on the auction and repacking on the LPTV industry,” the coalition said in an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 12-268 (http://bit.ly/1mJL6Ys). LPTV broadcasters also can appeal if the guard bands between the new TV core and new mobile broadband services don’t stay within the intent of the Spectrum Act, and are sized based on “a political accommodation for the unlicensed advocates’ desire for a specific level or service,” it said. Another cause for appeal is erosion or incursion into the LPTV spectrum usage rights, it said. The filing pertains to a meeting with staff from the FCC Office of General Counsel.

The FCC’s denial of two complaints against Milwaukee radio stations WISN (AM) and WTMJ (AM) is the final death throes of the fairness doctrine offshoot “Zapple doctrine,” said Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford in a blog post Friday (http://bit.ly/1m7stPD). The Zapple doctrine required that stations giving airtime to supporters of one political candidate had to provide similar time to supporters of the opposition. Media Action Center had filed complaints against WISN (http://bit.ly/1j4neR8) and WTMJ (http://bit.ly/Rxm4lp) for violating the Zapple doctrine and the First Amendment by not giving Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s opponents the same airtime given to the Republican’s supporters. In orders released Thursday, the Media Bureau rejected both arguments. “The Commission cannot exercise any power of censorship over broadcast stations with respect to content based programming decisions,” said the bureau of the First Amendment argument. The bureau also has no basis to enforce Zapple, the orders said. Since August 2011, the fairness doctrine has been defunct and rules springing from it are “obsolete,” the order said. “Given the fact that the Zapple Doctrine was based on an interpretation of the fairness doctrine, which has no current legal effect, we conclude that the Zapple Doctrine similarly has no current legal effect,” the orders said. So “stations don’t have to worry about on-air statements made by an opinionated talk show host giving rise to equal opportunities to those who favor the candidate opposed by the host,” Oxenford said.