Broadcasters won the lottery to determine which venue will hear petitions for review against new FCC rules on joint sales agreements (JSA) and its handling of the quadrennial review of media ownership rules, according to court documents. The matter will be heard in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where NAB, Howard Stirk Holdings and NexStar Broadcasting had all filed court challenges. Prometheus Radio filed its own challenge in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, necessitating the lottery. The matter of venue may not be over, said Georgetown Law Institute for Public Representation senior counselor Andrew Schwartzman, representing Prometheus. The public interest group has filed a motion to transfer the case to the 3rd Circuit, and it’s likely to be granted, Schwartzman said. The 3rd circuit has handled challenges to the quadrennial review in the past, Schwartzman said, making it the likely venue for the case.

The NAB and Prometheus Radio Project each filed court challenges to new FCC rules on joint sales agreements (JSA) and its handling of the quadrennial review of media ownership rules, according to court documents and an NAB news release Friday (http://bit.ly/1o7ZMRY). The order barring JSAs where one station accounts for more than 15 percent of another’s ad sales (CD April 1 p4) without similarly attributing shared service agreements is “arbitrary and capricious,” public interest group Prometheus told the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The JSA rule is against the public interest because it puts broadcasters at a competitive disadvantage, NAB told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. “Ownership restrictions against free and local broadcasters are outdated in a world of national pay TV giants,” said an NAB spokesman in a written statement.

Sinclair wants to cancel the licenses of three TV stations involved in its $985 million plan to buy Allbritton’s TV stations because of FCC rules barring joint sales agreements, a lack of willing third-party buyers and an approaching deadline to close the deal, Sinclair said in a letter to the Media Bureau Thursday. The stations slated to go dark are WCFT-TV and WJSU-TV in Birmingham, Alabama, and WCIV-TV Charleston, South Carolina. Though Sinclair will preserve the content of those stations by multicasting their signals, closing the stations scuttles a plan by African-American broadcaster Armstrong Williams to participate in the deal (CD April 24 p12) and doesn’t serve the public interest, said commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O'Rielly in a joint statement. “We hope the commission will act immediately to correct its misguided policy on JSAs."

After pushing through votes on a net neutrality rulemaking and three incentive auction orders at its May 15 meeting, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler scheduled more of a breather for the June 13 meeting. There are no orders on the agenda, only presentations on the IP transition and expanding community access to radio (http://fcc.us/SsmKt9). Meanwhile Friday, a Wheeler blog post put the IP transition in historic perspective.

SoftBank may have at least an opening at the FCC if it moves forward on a buy of T-Mobile US. While FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and the Justice Department have been negative on the deal, Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel is officially taking a wait-and-see approach. Rosenworcel “doesn’t prejudge transactions before they are even announced,” a spokesman for the commissioner said Thursday.

Many of the changes to the FCC net neutrality NPRM in recent weeks have been driven by the Democratic commissioners, agency and industry officials said, as Chairman Tom Wheeler tries to secure the three votes he needs on the most intensely scrutinized item he has tackled as chairman. As the vote nears, some officials point to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn as the one in the driver’s seat, as Wheeler redrafts the rules to devote more space to the possibility of using Title II to achieve his net neutrality goals. The idea of a “springing” Title II authority has also gained traction in recent days, and is part of the NPRM discussion, industry observers said. That would invoke Title II as backup authority in case a court finds Communications Act Section 706 has fallen short.

Many of the changes to the FCC net neutrality NPRM in recent weeks have been driven by the Democratic commissioners, agency and industry officials said, as Chairman Tom Wheeler tries to secure the three votes he needs on the most intensely scrutinized item he has tackled as chairman. As the vote nears, some officials point to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn as the one in the driver’s seat, as Wheeler redrafts the rules to devote more space to the possibility of using Title II to achieve his net neutrality goals. The idea of a “springing” Title II authority has also gained traction in recent days, and is part of the NPRM discussion, industry observers said. That would invoke Title II as backup authority in case a court finds Communications Act Section 706 has fallen short.

Further FCC culling of a backlog of indecency complaints that exceeded a million at its peak (CD Jan 14/13 p1) hasn’t mollified critics on either side of the issue. The number of new consumer complaints about what’s on radio and TV plunged in recent years to a minuscule proportion of the highs after Janet Jackson’s 2004 Super Bowl “wardrobe malfunction,” agency records show. That happened because consumers grew discouraged feeling the agency won’t act on instances of on-air nudity and cursing they flagged, and also because of a lack of high-profile indecency on primetime broadcast TV a la Jackson, said groups that ask viewers to file FCC complaints.

Complaints filed at the FCC Thursday allege 11 TV stations failed to publicly disclose information about sponsors of political ads that aired this year. The Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and the Sunlight Foundation filed the complaints against stations owned by CBS, Gannett, Hearst, Scripps and others. Those groups cautioned that enforcement in this area is critical as smaller stations will have to comply with the political file rule July 1 (CD April 8 p5).

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is reassuring net neutrality advocates that Title II reclassification of broadband remains an option if proposed net neutrality rules aren’t enough. Industry observers said in interviews that Wheeler’s latest comments (CD April 30 p4) probably aren’t an idle threat, though it remains a big question whether reclassifying broadband is even possible in the remaining 33 months of the Obama presidency. Wheeler circulated a revised version of his net neutrality NPRM Tuesday, agency officials confirmed.