At the end of the 2014 campaign, the ratio of political advertising time to political news stories on Philadelphia’s major TV stations was 45:1, said a study released Thursday from Philly Political Media Watch. In the eight weeks leading up to the election, it said viewers of the top six stations in Philadelphia were bombarded with nearly 12,000 ads designed to influence the outcome. The study was a collaboration between technologists, academics, journalists and civic activists, funded by the Democracy Fund and the Rita Allen Foundation and led by the Internet Archive. Other major participating organizations were the Sunlight Foundation, the Committee of Seventy and the University of Delaware’s Center for Community Research and Service. The study was based on an examination of political ad and news broadcasts in the Philadelphia market, chosen for the pilot project because of its size and a coverage area that includes parts of three states, Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Candidates and outside groups spent more than $15 million Sept. 1-Nov. 4 to air nearly 14,000 TV ads on the stations in the entire Philadelphia market, including surrounding municipalities and some small stations in New Jersey, the report said.

A group of broadcasters withdrew a 2012 petition for reconsideration that had challenged rules requiring disclosure of political ad rate information, said a withdrawal filing posted online Friday. "It is axiomatic that disclosure of price information is anti-competitive and disrupts markets," said the original petition jointly filed by Cox Media, Dispatch Broadcast, E.W. Scripps, Gannett, Hearst, Media General, Meredith, Graham Media, Raycom and Schurz Communications. An attorney representing the broadcasters in the proceeding didn't comment.

The FCC should create a path for low-power TV stations that survive the post-incentive auction repacking and meet certain criteria to become Class A stations, said Capitol Broadcasting in an ex parte filing Thursday. The same suggestion was earlier made by Gray TV and DTV America. The criteria for stations to go Class A wouldn't require the commission to grant priority based on the type of programming provided, but instead to do so "based on requirements that LPTV stations be operational and commit to providing a certain level of service to the local community,” Capitol said.

The FCC should preserve one noncommercial educational channel in each community during the post-incentive auction repacking, said Association of Public Television Stations President Patrick Butler and other APTS, Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS officials in a meeting with Commissioner Mike O’Rielly Monday, said an ex parte filing posted in docket 12-268 Wednesday. Holding space for an NCE channel would “allow any broadcaster to volunteer to participate in the incentive auction, and at the same time would continue the Commission’s well-established reserved spectrum policy by ensuring space for a new entrant in the event that an unserved area develops,” the filing said. The FCC also should grant priority status to displacement applications for translators connected with NCE stations after the auction, the public TV representatives said. The FCC should avoid repacking any stations into the new wireless bands, the filing said. The commission should “maintain a contiguous television broadcast band due to the insurmountable challenges with implementation of a repacking plan that intermingles broadcast and wireless services in the 600 MHz Band,” the filing said.

If the FCC grants Pandora’s application to buy KXMZ(FM), Box Elder, South Dakota, the FCC should “condition the grant on Pandora's agreement not to assert entitlement to the [American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers] Radio Group License prior to January 1, 2017,” ASCAP said in an ex parte filing posted in docket 14-109 Wednesday. Pandora has been seeking to buy the station since 2013 (see 1306170033). “This would allow Pandora to own KXMZ, which is what it says it wants, but it would mitigate the public interest harms by enabling the music industry, radio broadcasters and Pandora to continue ongoing efforts to resolve issues that, if not resolved, threaten to lead music licensors to take steps that would ultimately impact negatively the bulk of the commercial radio industry,” said ASCAP. Songwriters and music publishers have said that Pandora’s purchase of the station could provide the digital broadcaster with the same publishing royalty rates as terrestrial competitors, which would provide the former with a competitive advantage.

The FCC shouldn't stop broadcasters from pre-empting political advertisers using last-in, first-out (LIFO) policies, broadcast companies, associations and affiliate groups said in reply comments in docket 15-24, responding to Canal Partners Media’s request that the commission do so. “The law requires that stations treat candidates as well as they treat their best commercial advertisers -- but stations certainly are not required to provide candidates with better treatment than their best commercial advertisers,” said Media General, echoing NAB, Sinclair and every other entity that filed reply comments. It would be “a mistake” for the FCC to start dictating the way stations sell advertising time, said the ABC affiliates. CBS and NBC affiliate groups also opposed Canal in their reply comments, and nearly all endorsed NAB’s position opposing the change. NAB has acknowledged that the LIFO policies favor commercial advertisers over political candidates, Canal said, pointing to an NAB publication called The Political Broadcast Catechism. Canal also said TV stations haven't been disclosing their LIFO policies to political ad buyers, and disputed that blocking LIFO policies would elevate candidates over other advertisers. “Until someone becomes a “legally qualified candidate,” that person "cannot get in line to establish a position in the LIFO pecking order,” Canal said. “But commercial advertisers can get in the LIFO line whenever they want.”

The FCC Media Bureau put a freeze on certain filings connected with Auction 98, it said in a public notice Monday. The affected filings include applications to modify Auction 98 FM allotments; petitions that propose a change in channel, class or community for allotments scheduled for the auctions; or any petition that fails to “fully protect any Auction 98 Allotment," the PN said. “This freeze will automatically terminate the day after the filing deadline for post-Auction 98 long form applications,” the PN said. ”This temporary freeze is designed to promote a more certain and speedy auction process.”

HBO Now, HBO’s stand-alone offering, is a Comcast competitor, TDG Research analyst Alan Wolk said in a note Thursday. HBO Now is suited for cord-nevers and cord cutters, he said. Comcast hopes its customers will use X1 and X2 set-tops, while other multichannel video programming distributors could shift to a bring-your-own-device system, he said. Set-top boxes are dated, difficult to update and unreliable, he said. Customers could buy Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV or Roku and MVPDs could provide an app, he said. Operators could instead offer branded devices and make customers install and maintain them, he said. “This would take the onus to provide STBs off the operator” and allow more frequent updates, Wolk said. Comcast wants to control its interface and “create a standard for the industry,” selling X1 and X2 to peers, he said. The set-top could include streaming services, like Amazon or Netflix, he said. Pay-TV subscribers who have HBO Go have “the best of both worlds” with HBO live through set-tops and on-demand through an app, he said. HBO Go is available on mobile and in-home connected devices at no extra charge, he said. MVPDs shouldn’t worry about HBO-subscribing customers deserting them, he said. To keep HBO customers, MVPDs can offer a lower package price, add 10 MB of Internet speed for free or give two free years of HBO for renewals, he said.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is removing barriers to innovation by reducing quotas setting the number of Canadian programs that local TV stations and specialty channels must broadcast, the CRTC said in a news release Thursday. Jean-Pierre Blais, CRTC's Chairman, also discussed the changes in a speech Thursday to the Canadian Club of Ottawa, said a news release. The CRTC will ensure these stations and channels reinvest a portion of their revenues to help create content by Canadians, it said. Programs like drama and documentaries will continue investing at least 75 percent of these funds to content created by independent producers, it said. The CRTC will eliminate the rules that specialty channels, like HGTV Canada and MusiquePlus, can broadcast only certain programs, it said. Existing channels can acquire or produce shows that respond better to their audience and new specialty services can enter the Canadian market, it said. VOD services can offer exclusive content to cable and satellite subscribers, if they are available to all Canadians over the Internet without a TV subscription, allowing "Canadian services to compete on a more equal footing with online video services," the agency said. The regulator will launch two pilot projects that will allow live-action drama and comedy series with budgets of $2 million per hour or that are based on best-selling novels written by Canadian authors to be considered Canadian productions, it said. "Existing funding models could be updated to provide incentives for international co-productions and co-ventures, promotion and international distribution opportunities and the creation of online content," it said. Canadian TV employs almost 60,000 people and invests more than $4 billion every year, it said. The agency launched "Let's Talk TV: A Conversation with Canadians" in 2013 to focus on the future of TV, it said.

The FCC’s “complex and under-developed dynamic reserve pricing proposal” won’t generate as much participation and will lead to a less successful auction than a pricing plan from the Expanding Opportunity for Broadcasters Coalition, the EOBC said in reply comments on the incentive auction public notice in docket 12-268. The EOBC pricing plan would weight stations’ interference higher than their population served in calculating opening bid prices. The FCC also shouldn’t allow anything to delay the auction, EOBC said. “Any deviation from the FCC’s current auction timeline would be unjustified and have potentially disastrous consequences,” EOBC said. “It is imperative that the FCC now adopt these data-driven proposals to ensure that the Incentive Auction achieves its full potential.”