FCC

On or before Jan. 10, all radio, full power TV, and Class A TV stations are required to place in (or, in the case of TV, upload to) their public inspection file a copy of an Issues/Programs Report covering the station’s treatment of local community issues in programs broadcast between Oct. 1, 2014, and Jan. 1, 2015. Public service announcements may be listed as a supplement to the report, if desired, but should not form the basis for the entire report. Similarly, the report should not consist solely of descriptions of breaking news.

The FCC will introduce and vote on new net neutrality rules in February, ending weeks of speculation over when the commission would make its next move on the subject. Sources close to the agency also report momentum is building for more aggressive regulations than originally proposed.

There are currently close to 6,000 LPTV and TV translator stations that serve the heart of America – with more stations in the construction process – providing local programming that cannot be found elsewhere. LPTV service has also brought more diversity to the broadcast television business. Unfortunately, the FCC’s upcoming broadcast spectrum incentive auction puts at risk low-power TV stations and could force many of them to turn off their signal forever.

The FCC is racing to write rules that require Internet service providers to treat all Web traffic equally, and many expect the agency will follow President Barack Obama’s call to treat broadband service like a utility. Telecom giants and Republican lawmakers say that will create burdensome new regulation — and the issue has already incited a lobbying frenzy, raised the specter of lawsuits and ignited new partisan fires on Capitol Hill.

In its continuing effort to assure that television programming is more accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing, last February the FCC ratcheted up the captioning requirements for video programming distributors (VPDs) and video programmers. And now, thanks to a low-key announcement in the Federal Register, we know when the last of the new requirements will kick in: March 16, 2015.

The station groups agree not to fight the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger with a series of conditions that would bar Comcast from discriminating in favor of NBCU-owned or operated stations over retransmission consent — and other issues — for 10 years after the TWC deal closes.

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Opponents of the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger are prepping for the next round of verbal brawling on Tuesday, the FCC’s deadline for more comments regarding the pros and cons of the $45 billion deal. Separately, the FCC on Monday implemented another delay of the time clock governing the schedule of its review.

The commission’s rulemaking proposal includes certain online-delivered video in the definition, designed to level the playing field for the distribution of video programming.

Wasting little time after an August Public Notice, the FCC issued an NPRM Thursday proposing to require broadcast radio stations, satellite radio operators and cable and DBS operators to post their public inspection files to the FCC’s online database.

The FCC, in an order released Thursday, dismissed a request to deny the license renewal of a Virginia radio station that broadcast the word “Redskins.” John Banzhaf III and others said use of the name for the Washington team during NFL games was objectionable because it’s a “derogatory racial and ethnic slur” against American Indians.

he FCC’s Auction Comment Public Notice was neither brief nor simple, with 68 pages of text and almost 90 pages of appendices. If you are looking for a detailed summary, you can find it here. In this post, we identify five takeaways from the PN that broadcasters should know.

New Net neutrality rules are “essential” to protect openness on the Web, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said in a new letter to Congress. “I believe that the Internet must remain an open platform for free expression, innovation, and economic growth,” Wheeler wrote to Rep. Bob Goodlatte in a letter dated Dec. 9 and made public this week. “We cannot allow broadband networks to cut special deals to prioritize Internet traffic and harm consumers, competition, and innovation.”

As lawmakers raced to gavel out the 113th Congress into history, the U.S. Senate gave some stability to the FCC. It voted to nominate Republican commissioner Mike O’Reilly to a new term. The former Capitol Hill staffer had been serving out the term of former commissioner Robert McDowell since being sworn-in last November.

Richmond-based Media General Inc.’s $1.6 billion merger with LIN Media should be completed at the end of this week after receiving the go-ahead from the FCC on Friday. The deal, announced in March, creates one of the nation’s largest broadcast TV groups, which will own and operate or service 71 stations in 48 U.S. markets. The new Media General will reach 27.5 million, or 23%, of U.S. television households.

The two companies are merging their broadcast operations under the E.W. Scripps Co. name while spinning off their newspaper interests into a new company, Jounal Media Group.

With the success of the AWS-3 spectrum auction — bids have now climbed past $43.5 billion — NAB President Gordon Smith says the FCC can afford to take a more measured approach to the auction and the repacking of the TV band. “The FCC has a chance to step back and recognize that a successful TV auction is within reach.”

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler on Thursday said he hopes to move “quickly” on new neutrality rules but declined to offer a specific timetable. “I think I said that I want to do it quickly, I want to do it right, and I want to do it sustainably,” he told reporters after the commission’s open meeting. When asked again if it would come in February or March of next year, he said only, “Quickly, right, sustainable.”

The FCC today launched a proceeding to write the rules for the TV incentive auction. But the two GOP commissioners voted against it, saying that some of the proposed rules would limit how much broadcasters can get paid for their spectrum and thus discourage them from participating.

Tthe FCC’s Media Bureau has issued a notice confirming that the deadline for bringing JSA arrangements into compliance with the revised rules adopted by the commission last spring has been extended for six months to Dec. 19, 2016. Mark your calendars.

A couple of months ago we reported on two proceedings, initiated simultaneously, looking into possible solutions to the problems that the upcoming repack of the spectrum will cause to wireless microphone users and manufacturers as well as various other users of the TV spectrum. While technically separate and distinct dockets, the two proceedings have obviously been linked from Day One. And now the FCC has announced, in a single consolidated order, that the comment deadlines for both proceedings have been extended.

With votes coming any day now, the FCC could be primed to begin a process that would give online video providers like FilmOn and Aereo access to some of the advantages enjoyed by cable and satellite TV services.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is under pressure from President Obama to issue the strongest possible net neutrality rules despite the vehement objections of industry groups and Republicans on Capitol Hill. But “going big” with the rules would be hugely controversial, likely drawing accusations that Wheeler is playing politics with the work of an independent agency.

In a decision released on Friday, the FCC staff denied the request of a church for an exemption from the rules requiring the closed captioning of most television programming, and may have helped to make clear an answer to those questions. This decision also helps to clear up a big question that has been hanging over such programs, for more than three years since the FCC reversed dozens of prior waivers granted by its staff to nonprofit groups claiming that the captioning would be economically burdensome on their operations (including the waiver that had been granted to this church).

Owner Journal Broadcast Corp. admits violating FCC rule that requires broadcasters to disclose the identity of program sponsors and will pay $115,000.

Representing a small group of spectrum speculators, Preston Padden is working to ensure that all station owners who want to sell their spectrum in the FCC incentive auction get the highest price possible. While I still believe it’s a mistake for strong, news-producing TV stations to sell their spectrum, there are plenty of broadcasters who should be thinking about taking the auction exit. And if they are thinking about it, they should also be thinking about joining Padden’s fight for a broadcast-friendly auction.

Like the first sparse snowflakes heralding a major blizzard long predicted but slow to arrive, an announcement in the Federal Register confirms that the FCC’s spectrum auction is indeed approaching. The public notice invites comment on a new “information collection” — dubbed Form 2100, Schedule 381 — which all full-power and Class A television licensees will have to complete and submit prior to the incentive auction. However, while the Federal Register notice asks the public to comment on the proposed “information collection,” the form itself does not appear to be currently available.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn say the commission’s revised JSA policy is working to protect competition and diversity in local TV markets, resulting in “real and replicable progress of which the broadcast industry should take note.”

The FCC’s approval completes the regulatory review of the merger, valued at about $270 million. The Justice Department last week approved the transaction on condition that the combined company would sell WEVV Evansville, Ind., because otherwise, its market share in that city would increase from about 42% to 60%. As part of the approval, the commission says Nexstar can continue to operate KYLE Bryan, Texas, as a satellite of KWKT Waco, Texas.

Comcast is tired of Netflix, that’s for sure. The cable giant had to answer a number of difficult questions from the FCC last week after Netflix objected in the strongest possible terms to a pending merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable. The cable giant’s answers are now redacted and available for all to see. And one of the most talked-about entities is Netflix: Its name comes up some 179 times over the course of the document, including in the footnotes.

The Fredericksburg, Va., Free Lance–Star’s new owner has 12 months to sell its four radio stations, according to a recent FCC ruling. Sandton Capital Partners had petitioned the FCC to receive the licenses for WFLS–FM and its sister stations, and a waiver of its newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership restriction.The FCC assigned the licenses to Sandton, but it denied the waiver request and does not anticipate granting extensions, according to its ruling.

A government auction of airwaves for use in mobile broadband has blown through presale estimates, becoming the biggest auction in the FCC’s history and signaling that wireless companies expect demand for Internet access by smartphones to continue to soar. “It’s stunning,” said Preston Padden, executive director of the Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition, a group representing broadcast television stations that are considering giving up their spectrum for sale in the FCC’s next auction, scheduled for 2016.

A federal appeals court blocked the FCC from ordering the disclosure of programming contracts as part of the U.S. government’s review of Comcast’s takeover of Time Warner Cable. The court sided with media companies, which warned that such a move will put them at a competitive disadvantage. The FCC disclosure requirement was put on hold pending a court review of a lawsuit filed earlier this month by CBS and other media companies seeking to block release of the contracts.

The FCC on Friday proposed to update its regulations for radio and TV station contests so that the rules are easier for the public to understand. The commission unanimously voted to move forward with the update to the regulations, which will allow companies to post their contest rules on the Internet and could spell the end of many fast-talking radio announcers and tiny type on some TV ads.

Federal regulators writing new net neutrality rules want to make sure their regulations can withstand a court challenge. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler told reporters on Friday that he was fully expecting major cable companies to sue over the new rules, no matter what they look like. “The big dogs are going to sue regardless of what comes out,” Wheeler told reporters.

Two minority-stake owners of Toledo low-power TV station WMNT-CA have asked the FCC to halt a pending agreement to sell the station to a New York-based media firm. In a petition, Jonathan James and Jerry Jones, who collectively own 19% of WMNT, say that they want the sale put on hold until the FCC can investigate aspects of the sale agreement that they claim have been kept secret by the station’s majority owner, Jesse Weatherby.

Net neutrality rules will be left off the schedule at the FCC’s final public meeting of the year, according to a tentative agenda released Thursday. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler had wanted to finalize rules by the end of the year. But FCC officials had previously confirmed it would be pushed back following President Obama’s recommendations on the issue.

Attention, all DTV broadcasters! It’s that time of year again. Your Form 317 is due at the FCC by Dec. 1. Since that’s the Monday following Thanksgiving weekend, you might want to start to focus on this now. Having trouble recalling just what Form 317 is all about? No problem. It’s the Digital Ancillary/Supplementary Services Report on which you have to report whether, between Oct. 1, 2013 and Sept. 30, 2014, your DTV station provided any ancillary or supplementary services for a fee and, if so, how much revenue the station received.

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai called on the agency to dismiss petitions that would prevent broadcasters from using the Washington Redskins team name on the air. He said the move would squelch debate and burden legitimate news reporting.

Robin Colwell will join FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly’s staff on Dec. 15, coming from a long background serving on Capitol Hill.

NAB EVP Rick Kaplan: “FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler recently circulated a proposal to his colleagues that recommends classifying certain over-the-top providers as multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs). The proposal aims to stimulate competition in the increasingly consolidated pay-television market. NAB supports the FCC examining how best to ensure that online entities can offer competitive alternatives. It is an important inquiry. While it presents exciting opportunities for consumers, however, without the proper level of humility and recognition of all of its challenges, it could lead to serious pitfalls.”