E.W. Scripps Q4 sales rose 40% to $591 million over Q4 2019, the company reported Friday. It's “a full-scale television company and the largest holder of broadcast spectrum in the country," following its acquisition of Ion, said CEO Adam Symson.
The FCC Enforcement Bureau mailed the first batch of equal employment opportunity audit letters for 2021 Thursday, said a public notice. Each year, about 5% of all stations are selected for EEO audits.
U.S. Bank in St. Louis will stop processing manual FCC Media Bureau filing fee payments made to P.O. Box 979089 effective May 25, said Wednesday's Federal Register. The post office box closure and switch to mandatory electronic payments was approved in December (see 2012100057).
The FCC broadcast internet proceeding clarifying rules for datacasting with ATSC 3.0 takes effect March 25, said Tuesday's Federal Register. The order, which affects how broadcaster ancillary fees are calculated, was approved 5-0 in December (see 2012100071).
NAB spoke with FCC Media Bureau Chief Michelle Carey Thursday on “the appropriate scope” of possible foreign-sponsored content disclosure rules, said a filing posted in docket 20-199 Tuesday. The group discussed “tightening the focus of any such requirements” and “the standard of reasonable diligence that broadcasters may be required to meet.”
The FCC Media Bureau Video Division seeks comment on Gray Television’s request to shift KSNB-TV Superior, Nebraska, to channel 24 in York, Nebraska, said a Monday public notice. “Because Gray’s proposal that the Division allot channel 24 to York is not mutually exclusive with its existing channel 4 allotment at Superior, and would result in removal of Superior’s sole local transmission outlet,” the request would require a waiver, the PN said. Another PN sought comments, also with forthcoming deadlines, on Gray's request to swap the channel of KCBD Lubbock, Texas, from 11 to 36.
The FCC-proposed rule on content sponsored by foreign governments “threatens to interfere with public radio’s core First Amendment activities and public service mission,” NPR told Media Bureau Chief Michelle Carey last week, per a filing posted in docket 20-299 Monday. Rules should be tailored to the specific areas that raised concerns, such as foreign governments leasing stations or buying airtime to air foreign-sponsored content, NPR said: “The proposed remedy is too broad.”
Don't adopt rules intended to curb foreign propaganda that end up affecting “innocuous content,” America’s Public Television Stations and PBS asked FCC Media Bureau Chief Michelle Carey and staff, per a filing posted Thursday in docket 20-299. The rules proposed in the NPRM (see 2101260065) could capture B-roll footage from foreign tourism boards, programming produced using common tax incentives, and archival footage filmed abroad and used in noncommercial educational programming, the public broadcasting backers said. “Provide flexibility for NCE licensees in implementation of any new rules.”
NAB’s Sales and Management Television Exchange and Radio Show events will take place in conjunction with October's NAB Show in Las Vegas, said the association Thursday. The 2021 NAB Show is Oct. 9-13, SMTE Oct. 8-9 and the Radio Show Oct. 13-14. SMTE is aimed at small- and medium-market TV station managers, and the Radio Show is co-produced with the Radio Advertising Bureau. The cancellation of NAB’s events in 2020 led the association to ask members for extra payments last year (see 2010290064).
The ATSC 3.0 Evoca TV service in Boise has been “exercising flash channels a fair amount in our system” since debuting in September (see 2011010001), CEO Todd Achilles told the virtual Streaming Media 2021 Connect conference Thursday. “We set up a flash 4K channel for a sporting event, and we’re actually standing up a flash channel today for the Mars rover landing.” It landed around 4 p.m. EST. The channel capability is in the 3.0 suite to “spin up an extra channel” over-the-air “on demand and dynamically, and spin it down again,” said ATSC President Madeleine Noland: “A flash channel is a channel that pops up for a particular purpose and comes back down again.” Such protocols are in ATSC’s A/351 recommended practice document for 3.0 signaling, delivery and synchronization techniques, said Noland through a spokesperson. An app per the A/344 standards on 3.0 interactive content is used, she said. Achilles thinks 3.0 is superior to 5G for content delivery into the home. “There’s lots of conversations” about how 5G will become “the new technology to deliver video into the home,” he said. “When you look at the numbers on that, it’s still a really expensive way to deliver bits to a stationary end user.”