Radio broadcaster Salem Media apologized for releasing a film and book questioning the 2020 election results and removed both from all its platforms, Salem said in a news release Friday. The book and film are called 2000 Mules. They're the work of conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza and the organization True the Vote. In the release, Salem said it relied on representations from D’Souza and TTV that a Georgia private citizen named Mark Andrews illegally deposited ballots during the election. “We have learned that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has cleared Mr. Andrews of illegal voting activity in connection with the event depicted in 2000 Mules,” said the release. “We apologize for the hurt the inclusion of Mr. Andrews’ image in the movie, book, and promotional materials have caused Mr. Andrews and his family.”

The one-year window for qualified low-power TV stations to apply for Class A status under the provisions of the Low-Power Protection Act opened Friday, and will stretch until May 30, a Media Bureau public notice said Friday in docket 23-126. The window is open to stations that broadcast a minimum of 18 hours daily, carry three hours per week of local programming, are located in markets of 95,000 households or fewer, and met all those requirements 90 days before the LPPA’s approval on Jan. 5, 2023. Fewer than 30 rural stations are expected to qualify. LPTV broadcaster Radio Communication Corporation is challenging the FCC order implementing the LPPA in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (see 2405230040).

The Copyright Office (CO) last week gathered feedback from broadcasters, streamers and songwriters on the potential redesignation of the entity that administers digital streaming royalties under the Music Modernization Act (MMA) (see 2208150042). President Donald Trump signed the MMA into law in October 2018, establishing the mechanical licensing collective (MLC). The MMA -- a years-long negotiation and legislative compromise among music industry, broadcast and streaming entities -- modernized the royalty payment system for the digital era. The MMA requires the CO to review the MLC’s designation every five years. The first review began in January, and reply comments are due June 28. The MIC Coalition, which includes NAB, CTA, the Computer & Communications Industry Association and the Digital Media Association, didn’t take a position on the MLC’s redesignation. But the coalition recommended the CO require the MLC to incorporate performance rights organization data into the musical works database to help members more efficiently handle payments. The MLC’s current database lacks comprehensive information for all four performing rights organizations, they said. The National Music Publishers’ Association and Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI), organizations that hold MLC board seats, recommended renewal. NMPA said it opposes proposals that "erode the proper functioning or funding of the MLC as explicitly laid out in the statutory text.” The MLC has “succeeded in fulfilling all of its obligations with the lowest operating budget of any known license administration collective in the music publishing industry,” said NMPA. The MLC’s operating costs, as a percentage of royalties it processes, was 3% in 2023, it said. Collective management and performing rights organizations typically take a 10%-20% commission, NMPA said. NSAI acknowledged there are areas for improvement but said the MLC has “exceeded everyone’s expectations in its first four years of operation. It is efficiently and effectively licensing, collecting and distributing royalties in a way our industry has not seen before.” Songwriters of North America said the existing MLC should be renewed, but the organization needs to address issues with the transfer and accuracy of the database.

The FCC should treat public TV stations differently from commercial stations in its locally originated content proceeding (see 2403120071), America’s Public Television Stations and PBS said during a call with an aide to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks Thursday, according to an ex parte filing in docket 24-14. The proposal prioritizing applications from broadcasters that originate local content “should not shift the long-standing understanding of localism as ‘issue-responsive’ programming,” the filing said. The NPRM proposes defining locally originated content as created within or very close to a station’s market, and that would exclude much public TV content, the filing said. The proposed definitions “do not align with the inherently local, community-responsive programming of public television stations, especially the programming of state and regional networks and local stations that engage in station collaborations,” the filing said. “Public television stations, which are locally owned and locally operated, are inherently local.” The FCC’s local content proceeding could have implications for what content is considered local in future proceedings, PBS and APTS said.

Broadcast applications filed after Aug.1 will need to use 2020 U.S. Census data in any interference analyses, said the FCC Media Bureau in a public notice in Wednesday’s Daily Digest. “Failure to do so will require amendment and may result in dismissal of applications as defective,” the PN said. The TVStudy software the agency uses to calculate interference and allot channels will make use of the 2020 census data, the PN said. TVStudy has also been updated to version 2.3.0, said a separate PN listing the updates.

The FCC Media Bureau will allow low-power TV stations to apply to change their channels starting Aug. 20, after a 14-year freeze, said a public notice Tuesday. The freeze on major modification applications for LPTV was put in place in 2010 in anticipation of the broadcast incentive auction. The freeze will be lifted Aug. 20 only for channel change applications. “No other changes will be permitted,” the PN said, but added that allowing channel changes is the “first step” in doing away with the freeze altogether. The channel change applications will be processed “on a first-come, first-serve basis.” Mutually exclusive applications will be handled through a settlement window to be announced by the MB in a later PN. Lee Miller, Advanced Television Broadcasting Alliance executive director, told us many LPTV stations have long been waiting for the chance to change channels to improve reception or change their market. The announcement is “a step forward for our industry,” he said.

Radio Communication Corp. “fundamentally misreads the statutory scheme” and is “simply mistaken” in its challenges to the FCC’s implementation of the 2023 Low Power Protection Act (LPPA) (see 2404230058), said the agency's respondent brief Wednesday (docket 24-1004) in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. “It is well within Congress’s power to regulate local television broadcasting,” said the brief. RCC's arguments that the FCC’s rules governing which low-power TV stations can upgrade to Class A status violate the First Amendment or discourage cable carriage of LPTV stations are “entirely beside the point,” because RCC is located in too large a market and so “ineligible for Class A status under the plain text” of the LPPA, the FCC said. The agency “correctly interpreted the statutory requirement that an eligible station ‘operate in a Designated Market Area with not more than 95,000 television households’ to mean that an eligible station must be located within a Designated Market Area that has no more than 95,000 television households,” the filing said. RCC is in a DMA with more than 95,000 TV households, so “that conclusion resolves this case,” the FCC said. “RCC’s various policy objections, its strained reading of the Communications Act, and its tenuous constitutional theories cannot change its ineligibility.”

The full FCC rejected an application for review from radio broadcaster Americom appealing a Media Bureau denial of its request to increase the power of a Carson City, Nevada, FM translator station. The rejection was detailed in an order released Tuesday. “We find no error in the Staff Decision,” the order said. Americom had sought a waiver to increase the translator’s power from 40 watts to 250 watts to better reach Nevada's Reno and Sparks markets and better serve Carson City, the order said. The Media Bureau found that “neither the irregular size and shape of the Nielsen Reno Market nor the signal degradation due to terrain obstruction, were unusual circumstances sufficient to justify grant of a waiver,” the order said. In its application for review, Americom argued that the Media Bureau decision didn’t match the spirit of the FCC’s AM Revitalization order, and that the bureau should have been more flexible and didn’t give Americom’s request sufficient consideration. The order said that Americom’s request would have conflicted with language in the AM Revitalization order limiting AM station service areas, and affirmed the Media Bureau ruling. “The benefits of Americom increasing its service area beyond the parameters set forth in the FM Translator Siting Rule do not outweigh the public interest benefits of applying that rule in a fair and consistent manner,” the order said.

The FCC Media Bureau has created two dockets associated with the draft NPRM on new requirements for low-power television stations, said a public notice Monday. Docket 24-147 is for filings on “Political Programming and Online Public File Requirements for Low Power Television Stations” and 24-148 is for “Amendment of the Commission’s Rules to Advance the Low Power Television, TV Translator and Class A Television Service,” the PN said. The draft LPTV NPRM is slated for the June 6 open meeting (see 2405160076).

Expanding the scope of the foreign-sponsored content rules “would create substantial operational burdens and legal costs for all local broadcast stations that sell advertising,” said Fox, CBS, NBC and ABC affiliate associations in videoconference meetings with FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington and an aide to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel Monday, according to an ex parte filing Thursday in docket 20-299. Expanding the rules would encourage advertisers to stop using broadcast outlets in favor of less-regulated internet and social media ads, the filing said. That doesn’t make sense “in a marketplace where most video advertising platforms will not be subject to the rules,” the affiliate groups said. The affiliate groups also objected to their 2021 petition seeking clarification of the foreign-sponsored content policy serving as the basis for expansion of the rules, the filing said (see 2403210071).