Claiming that the FCC will review a petition challenging the license of the Washington Redskins’ flagship radio station says nothing about the petition’s merits or how the commission might rule, said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler Sunday in a letter to the editor posted on www.latimes.com (http://lat.ms/10Gp6bY). Wheeler said he finds the Washington NFL team name “offensive” and believes “it would be appropriate for the team to adopt a new name.” But “my personal views are just that -- personal -- and should not be perceived as an indication on how the commission will or won’t act,” he said, responding to an editorial on the news site stating the FCC has no business regulating a football team name (http://lat.ms/1q5q6Lq).

NAB and Sinclair filed a proposed joint briefing schedule for their court challenges of the FCC incentive auction order that would have final briefs in the case being filed in January, in a filing in U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Friday. Since all parties agree the case should continue to be heard on an expedited basis, oral argument in the matter would likely take place soon after the final brief is filed, an attorney experienced in such cases told us. The schedule would allow for the cases to be argued “ahead of the incentive auction, which the FCC hopes to complete by mid-2015,” the joint filing said. Under the briefing schedule, NAB and Sinclair would brief their cases separately, with NAB raising issues about the commission’s protections of broadcasters and OET-69, while Sinclair will argue that the commission violated the law through its incentive auction rules and by requiring displaced licensees to cease operating on their old channels within 39 months of the auction even if their replacement facilities aren’t usable, the filing said. It said the FCC doesn’t object to the proposed schedule.

The full FCC should reverse the Media Bureau’s decision to dismiss complaints that the then-Allbritton-owned ABC affiliate WJLA-TV Washington, D.C., and Sander’s KGW-TV Portland, Oregon, violated online political file disclosure rules, said the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause and Sunlight Foundation in an application for review filed Thursday. The groups filed the original complaints that the TV stations had incorrectly reported the entity sponsoring political ads (CD Sept 5 p16). The ads were paid for by super PACs that received “essentially all their funding from a single donor, making that person the ’true sponsor’ of the advertisement,” the groups said. “However, neither station disclosed on-air the name of that single donor, thus violating the Communications Act and the Commission’s rules.” The Media Bureau dismissed the complaints for not showing that the stations had evidence that the sponsor wasn’t the super PAC. The bureau-level decision was wrong, the groups said. “The Communications Act and the Commission’s rules explicitly place the reasonable diligence requirement on broadcasters, not the public.” The delegated authority decision “shifted the broadcasters’ burden of reasonable diligence to the public, releasing broadcasters from any obligation,” the filing said. It said the full commission also should clarify that the public is not required to present evidence to the station prior to filing with the agency.

Pandora’s proposed buy of KXMZ(FM) Box Elder, South Dakota, doesn’t raise any concerns of foreign control over U.S. broadcasters, said the company in reply comments posted Tuesday in docket 14-109 (http://bit.ly/1mVRelg). The proceeding concerns Pandora’s petition for a declaratory ruling that would allow it to buy the station without proving that it isn’t foreign-owned (CD July 2 p6). The only objections to the deal have been raised by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, and ASCAP “did not suggest in any way that the small amount of foreign ownership in Pandora may influence or control Pandora’s programming or operation of KXMZ,” Pandora said. ASCAP’s objections are “speculative” and concern music licensing rights that are “outside of the Commission’s primary jurisdiction,” Pandora said. Pandora seeks to buy KXMZ to qualify for the same publishing royalty rates as broadcasters to better compete with services like iHeartRadio’s similar service (CD June 17/13 p16). Pandora’s buy of the station will serve the public interest by providing “broadcast programming that is highly customized to KXMZ’s local listeners,” by allowing listener tastes to select the station’s content, Pandora said. Allowing the foreign ownership rules to block Pandora’s purchase “would be inconsistent with the Commission’s objective of facilitating new entrants, and promoting the investment of new capital, into the U.S. broadcast market,” Pandora said. “Pandora’s petition for declaratory ruling is ripe for Commission action and is soundly supported by public interest benefits.”

Sinclair and Nexstar have the most spectrum portfolio value as a percentage of equity among broadcasters eligible for the incentive auction, said Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker in an email to investors Thursday. The valuation is based on the market-by-market price estimates of spectrum in the reverse portion of the incentive auction released by the FCC Wednesday (CD Oct 2 p1). Ryvicker also analyzed the data calculating the value of broadcast spectrum if each broadcaster involved in a duopoly were to put the spectrum of one of its dual channels up for auction while preserving the content through multicasting, as has been done by Sinclair (CD May 30 p1). Ryvicker called the money such a maneuver would generate “hidden spectrum value,” and found that Nexstar and Media General have the highest “hidden spectrum value,” according to the FCC estimates.

Correction: The date when a filing was posted from the Association of Public Television Stations urging the FCC to deal with reallocating broadcast spectrum before addressing a request to end TV Channel 6 protections was in December 2009 (CD Sept 25 p17).

Sinclair’s court challenge of the FCC incentive auction order would deprive the broadcasters in the Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition of the chance to participate in the auction, the EOBC said in a motion to intervene filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Wednesday. The EOBC motion seeks only to intervene against Sinclair’s challenge, not the narrower NAB filing it has been consolidated with, the motion said. CEA also asked to intervene solely against Sinclair (CD Sept. 30 p12). “EOBC member broadcasters have relied in good faith that the auction will occur under the rules adopted in the Report and Order and on the timetable set forth by the FCC,” the motion said. By asking the court to vacate or enjoin the auction order, Sinclair’s petition is a threat to the EOBC plans, the motion said. “If successful, Petitioner’s appeal will harm EOBC’s members,” the motion said.

A new electronic filing mechanism will “ultimately” replace the FCC Consolidated Data Base System (CDBS) for all radio and TV stations, with the first phase of the new Licensing and Management System (LMS) applying to full-power TV stations seeking certain permits, said a Media Bureau public notice. Full-power TVs filing applications for construction permits and applications for a license to cover a CP should use LMS, said Tuesday’s notice (http://bit.ly/YO3R6s). Those applications will be part of a new, single form “that will eventually replace all of the existing radio and TV services forms,” said the notice. All broadcaster applicants must fill out the main part of the new form, 2100, which requests general information common to all such requests, said the notice. “Information specific to particular applications will be completed on associated schedules for each type of authorization being requested.” Starting Thursday, the notice said seekers of those two types of CP-related actions must use LMS and can’t use CDBS for e-filing such applications.

The FCC should stay out of the debate on whether the Washington Redskins team name should be deemed a broadcast license-ending infraction, a broadcast attorney said. No current laws or FCC regulations or policies “prohibit broadcast of the word ‘Redskins,’ or any other racial epithet for that matter,” said Fletcher Heald attorney Steve Lovelady Monday in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1vrBRkT). Lovelady referred to a petition from John Banzhaf, a George Washington University professor who challenged the license of WWXX-FM Washington. The petition relies on a statute that makes it a criminal offense to broadcast obscene, indecent or profane language on radio or TV, Lovelady said. As inconsistent as the FCC’s enforcement of that provision has been, the provision “has never been held to proscribe racial or ethnic epithets,” he said. Since the term “Redskins” doesn’t have any per se sexual or excretory connotations at all, “much less any offensive ones, it would be impossible to stretch the terms ‘obscene’ or ‘indecent’ to include ‘Redskins,'” he said.

The Sports Fans Coalition again urged the FCC to dump the sports blackout rule. Fans around the country are waiting for the FCC “to finally put an end to this archaic and anti-fan practice,” the coalition said Monday in a news release. The FCC is expected to unanimously vote Tuesday for eliminating the rule (CD Sept 11 p2). The vote will send a message to the NFL and other sports leagues “that the free ride they've been given by the government is over,” said the coalition, started, in part, by a former Dish Network executive.