CPB announced Friday a grant of up to $57.9 million over five years to deliver interconnection services to public radio stations. The grant will go to Public Media Infrastructure (PMI), a newly created nonprofit formed by a coalition of public radio organizations, a release said. The group includes New York Public Radio, Station Resource Group, American Public Media Group and the National Federation of Community Broadcasters. Previous CPB grants for interconnection services had gone to the NPR-owned Public Radio Satellite Service, but PMI won out in a recent bidding process, a CPB spokesperson told us.
The FCC Media Bureau has set comment dates for several of Gray Television's proposed purchases of TV stations (see 2508010047) and indicated that the agency won’t oppose a court decision vacating the top-four Prohibition, according to a public notice Monday. “It is anticipated that the mandate for the vacatur of the Top-Four Prohibition will take effect on October 21,” the notice said. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the rule in July but delayed issuing the mandate to give the FCC additional time to file in opposition. Broadcast attorneys told us the language in Monday's notice suggests that the agency won’t do that. Comments on Gray’s proposed buys of stations from Sagamore Hill Broadcasting, Block Communications and Allen Media are due Oct. 22, the notice said. Opposition filings are due Nov. 6, replies Nov. 17.
The FCC Media Bureau is seeking comment on Kansas Public Telecommunications Service’s request to substitute channels for its station KPTS Hutchinson, Kansas, an NPRM said Tuesday. KPTS is currently on Channel *8 and seeks to switch to Channel *33. The FCC designates noncommercial channels with an asterisk. Comments will be due in docket 25-287 30 days after the NPRM is published in the Federal Register and replies 15 days later. The Media Bureau also granted a substitution request for theDove Media, which wanted to substitute Channel *24 for Channel *4 for a future noncommercial station in Jacksonville, Oregon.
The FCC Enforcement Bureau issued a pirate broadcasting notice to Tao and Persephone Lundolos of Booneville, Mississippi, about pirate radio broadcasts allegedly coming from property they own there. Hosting an unauthorized broadcast could result in a fine of up to $2.45 million for the property owners, the bureau said in a letter Friday.
The Enforcement Bureau has extended the deadline to Oct. 17 for responses to its 2025 equal employment opportunity audit letters and will allow stations targeted in the audit to keep their responses to questions about diversity practices private, said a public notice Friday. Responses had been due Sept. 22.
The FCC unanimously approved a $40,000 forfeiture against Wilner Baptiste for operating a pirate radio station in Spring Valley, New York. Baptiste operated “M-One Radio Live,” also known as “M-One Live Radio," according to the forfeiture order. Enforcement Bureau field agents traced Baptiste’s signal in February and June 2024, and the FCC issued a notice of apparent liability against him in September 2024 (see 2409260026).
The full FCC has voted to reject the Weather Alert Radio Network’s appeal of a 2024 Media Bureau decision rejecting 105 WARN applications for low-power FM stations in nine U.S. states and the U.S. Virgin Islands, said an order Thursday. WARN’s applications didn’t meet FCC requirements for a public safety radio service, and it didn’t provide any documentation that it had been in contact with state, local and national public safety entities, the order said. “Because WARN had not established that a public safety organization had officially authorized it to provide a public safety radio service on its behalf in the relevant proposed service area,” it didn’t meet the agency’s requirements that it have jurisdiction in its service area.
The FCC unanimously approved a $920,000 forfeiture and a $60,000 notice of apparent liability against pirate broadcasters, according to items in Wednesday’s Daily Digest. The forfeiture order was against Masner Beauplan of Middetown, New York, for operating an unauthorized station called “Radio Leve Kanpe” in Irvington and Maplewood, New Jersey, from November 2023 until January 2024. The NAL targets Radio Energy Inc. and its owner Pelege Marcellin for operating unauthorized AM stations near Boston called Radio Energy Boston in 2024. The stations stopped operating after they were inspected by FCC field agents, the NAL said. While searching for information on Radio Energy Boston, field agents found a news article announcing Marcellin’s purchase and renovation of a broadcast studio to establish a local radio station. Marcellin has 30 days to reply to the NAL.
Nexstar CEO Perry Sook said at investor conferences last week that he expects the FCC will act on the national ownership cap by the end of the year and possibly as early as this month. “I think we have a pretty clear line of sight” that the cap will be eliminated, Sook said at a Bank of America event Thursday. Sook said he had “a high degree of confidence in the Trump administration,” as well as FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and DOJ Antitrust Division Chief Gail Slater. Carr has been “very adept and very clever” by using an open national cap proceeding that had lain "dormant through the Biden administration and the [Jessica] Rosenworcel FCC, and reviving that by refreshing the record,” Sook said. Nexstar Chief Technology Officer Lee Ann Gliha said at Citi's Global TMT Conference on Wednesday that “we feel like we’re pushing on an open door, a bit.” Nexstar needs the cap to be eliminated to allow its proposed $6.2 billion purchase of Tegna to proceed (see 2508190042).
Since April, NAB has aired “nearly a quarter million” TV and radio spots across 192 media markets pushing for Congress and the FCC to relax broadcast ownership rules, the trade group said in a release Thursday. A campaign spot released last week called on viewers to “keep football free” by texting in support of relaxing the rules. “Supporters have sent more than 174,000 emails and 34,000 tweets directly to members of Congress and FCC commissioners,” NAB said. A national survey of likely voters conducted in August showed that 83% of respondents preferred games on broadcast over streaming, the group said. “The FCC must act quickly to level the playing field, so broadcasters can continue investing in the content communities rely on most,” NAB CEO Curtis LeGeyt said in the release.