FCC

As part of a House telecom committee proposal for STELA legislation, broadcasters with JSAs who applied for a waiver from the FCC would be able to keep the sharing arrangements intact for 18 months after the agency ultimately rejected a waiver request, or Dec. 31, 2016, whichever is later. The compromise JSA language is expected to be included  in the STELA reauthorization bill that  is scheduled for a House Energy and Commerce Committee vote tomorrow.

Tensions between broadcasters and the FCC have gotten so high that FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai wonders “if it’s time to call Dr. Phil and see if he is available to mediate.” In a speech to the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters today, Pai extended an olive branch to the industry, saying: “Every segment of the industry we regulate should have confidence that the Commission will give them a fair hearing, and none should be under the impression that the FCC is out to get them.”

The FCC just gave broadcasters another reason to answer the door graciously. Last week, the FCC whacked a WPHA-CD Philadelphia with an $89,200 Notice of Apparent Liability for refusing to allow FCC inspectors to inspect the station’s facilities, not just once, but on three different occasions. It is rare to see the FCC show its irritation in an NAL, but the language used by the FCC leaves no doubt that the commission was not happy with the licensee, particularly with what the FCC believed was blatant disregard for its authority. As the FCC put it, “this is simply unacceptable.”

The news that the association has given the FCC a week to reverse its tough new SSA stance reflects mounting frustration among broadcasters who are seeking FCC approval of deals that involve the alphabet soup of ownership rule work-arounds. I’ll be watching next week in hopes its May 8 cease-and-desist deadline is more than bluster.

The Campaign Legal Center and the Sunlight Foundation tell the FCC that 11 stations have violated disclosure rules, including failure to identify candidates referred to in the ads, the issue of national importance to which the ad refers and the CEO or board of the advertiser.

During a speech in Los Angeles, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler again defends his stance on Net neutrality and tries to reassure the public that he wants to keep the Internet open for all.

Under the commission’s proposal set for a vote next month, broadcasters, who currently pay nothing to ISPs to make their streaming services available to broadband subscribers, may wind up having to pay ISPs for higher-quality connections. But, at least for now, the NAB thinks it’s best to remain on the sidelines of the controversial policy battle.

CPB’s Board of Directors unanimously approved a resolution Thursday urging the FCC to avoid allowing “white areas” that would lack public television coverage after the upcoming spectrum auction and channel repacking.

Last month, comment deadlines had been set for the long-pending proposal to establish a “designated hitter” approach to assure that EAS announcements are broadcast in foreign languages when the audience includes a significant number of non-English speaking folks. If you’re thinking about filing comments in that proceeding, get your calendar and your eraser out. The Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau has just pushed the deadlines back a month.

TV representatives deliver FCC chief Tom Wheeler a list of items they’d like to see included in the commissions incentive auction order expected to be issued next month. Their biggest worry is that the resulting changes from the repack will reduce stations’ coverage areas.

The FCC is considering new net neutrality rules that would allow Internet providers to charge content companies like Neflix for faster speed.

Among the many commenters on the spectrum repack proposals submitted to the FCC are ones from broadcasters, engineers and tower and equipment firms that feel the proposed timeline is inadequate. Also filing are DirecTV and Dish Network, which expressed satisfaction with the report as it is.

Newton Minow and Henry Geller are asking the FCC to change its rule that requires only disclosure of the actual sponsor of issue ads to also require identification of the individuals or groups who donated funds to the sponsor such ads.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, a decisive and self-assured Democrat, is determined to move the typically slow-moving agency forward. Among the major issues are deciding whether to allow Comcast Corp. to purchase Time Warner Cable Inc., drafting new net neutrality rules governing how Internet providers run their networks, revising media ownership regulations and trying to persuade broadcasters to auction off some of their airwaves to allow for expanded wireless services.

SPECTRUM & THE INCENTIVE AUCTION  SPECTRUM: THE AIRWAVES THAT CARRY COMMUNICATION SERVICES Across the country, in both rural and urban areas, consumers and businesses expect to have access to wireless […]

Under the FCC’s incentive auction proposal, spectrum repurposed for wireless services during the auction would have to be cleared no later than 39 months after the agency “repacking process becomes effective.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler wrote today: “Few FCC policies have generated more attention than the incentive auction. Getting the incentive auction right will revolutionize how spectrum is allocated. By marrying the economics of demand (think wireless providers) with the economics of current spectrum holders (think television broadcasters), the incentive auction will allow market forces to determine the highest and best use of spectrum. More immediately, the incentive auction will deliver tremendous benefits for U.S. consumers across the country.

“On some levels, it’s an insult,” says one broadcast group representative of the planned April 22 half-hour meeting on the spectrum auction between the FCC chairman and representatives of the NAB, the TV networks, public broadcasters, network affiliate and station group representatives. “It will take half that time for everybody to go around and introduce themselves. What’s the point of dragging us in there?”

They worry that the timeline proposed for moving stations to new channel assignments following the FCC’s incentive auction is too short. The number of stations that may be required to change channels as part of the repack may exceed the industry’s capaciy to hang antennas, says consultant Jay Adrick. “There are only 14 tower crews in the United States.”

Sinclair Broadcast Group announced Wednesday that it has engaged Moelis & Co. as its financial adviser in connection with the company’s potential sale of CBS affiliate WHP (CBS) in Harrisburg, Pa., together with the right to provide services to WLYH (CW) Harrisburg, WMMP (MNT) Charleston, S.C., and WABM (MNT) Birmingham, Ala. The potential sale of the stations had been previously proposed to the FCC in order to smooth the way for approval of its proposed $985 million purchase of Allbritton Communications’ television stations that it wants to close by July 27.

Broadcasters must show that the JSA and any “related agreements or interests” do not provide them “with the opportunity, ability and incentive to exert significant influence over the programming or operations of the brokered station,” the FCC says. It adds that it will consider waiver requests on “an expedited basis.”

The proposal would require that all primary EAS stations broadcast national alerts in both English and Spanish, and that state EAS plans should designate stations to provide emergency information in other languages where there are significant populations that have a primary language other than English or Spanish. Comments on this proposal are due on April 28, and replies by May 12.

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn blogs that as a result of her meeting last week at the NAB Show with a group of network affiliates, she came away with “the realization that today’s media universe can no longer be viewed through myopic lenses and historic silos, and that the demarcation between over-the-air, cable, Internet and satellite broadcasting makes erstwhile legacy distinctions much harder to maintain.”

About a year and a half ago a petition for rulemaking was filed proposing that the FCC allow lawyers to file class actions on behalf of complainants. Rather than summarily reject the petition, the commission invited public comments on it. And now, 19 months down the line, the FCC has tossed the petition.

Does the report on the first formal tests of a TV channel-sharing arrangement really say what FCC Chair Tom Wheeler says it says? You make the call.

As FCC chief, Tom Wheeler oversees communications by television, radio, wire, satellite and cable. To get his message across, he has eagerly grasped a national megaphone on the defining telecom policy issues of the day.

Broadcasters should move beyond rhetoric and craft a real National Broadcast Plan, a petition to Congress and FCC laying out what they feel they need to remain competitive with broadband and other TV media and continue to fill their unique role in the mediascape. Here are 10 ideas the NAB — and all TV broadcasters — can use to get started.

The Republican FCC commissioner says that NAB chief Gordon Smith’s call for a National Broadcast Plan could backfire on broadcasters.

Saying the FCC wants to help the industry, Chairman Tom Wheeler urges support of open Internet regs and participation in the incentive auction; says the commission will back ATSC 3.0; defends the new JSA rule; and questions industry support of OET-69.

At the meeting in Las Vegas the board tells the FCC commissioners its March 31 decision to crack down on joint sales agreements appeared to be “arbitrary and capricious.”

More than 50 public interest groups submitted a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler calling the proposed merger of cable providers “unthinkable” and urging it to block the deal. It also asked the same of the Justice Department.

The commission reassures broadcasters that there will be no repercussions if they decline to talk about — or participate in — the upcoming spectrum auction.

Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake says the JSA crackdown that the FCC approved in a 3-2 vote last Monday (March 31) was originally proposed by the agency in 2004. He also said that while the FCC regularly granted new JSAs over the past decade, the agency also has regularly warned broadcasters that a crackdown might be coming.

FCC CEO Gordon Smith says such a plan is needed to balance the federal government’s “increasingly singular focus” on broadband. The FCC should take a “holistic” approach, starting with a thorough review of all regulations. “Where is the FCC’s gusto and determination to embrace broadcasting’s values and public service responsibilities?” he asks.

Station groups tell the commission it should drop its plans to hold one-on-one meetings with stations to convince them to participate in the incentive auction. Such meetings could be construed as a “big stick” with possible FCC enforcement activity as a price for non-cooperation, they say.

This week, after nearly four decades of gradually and carefully loosening the rules governing how many TV stations a broadcaster may own and where it may own them, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler took an abrupt U-turn, deciding to more strictly enforce the local ownership rule. He threw out years of precedents, and he did so in a punitive way.

The NAB said that the FCC should stick to the traditional OET-69 methodology for calculating the over-the-air coverage of TV stations. Using another standard, the association said, would be “arbitrary, capricious and contrary to established law.”

If you’re a TV licensee who doesn’t happen to be either (a) in any of the top 50 DMAs or (b) affiliated with one of the top four commercial networks (ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC), we’ve got some news for you: it looks like you’ll be having to upload all your new (but none of your old) political file data to your online public inspection file starting July 1.