The FCC Media Bureau approved Media General’s $1.5 billion buy of LIN Media, the bureau said in a letter released Friday. The deal was the subject of a Department of Justice consent decree in October requiring some divestitures (see 1410300060). The FCC concurred with Media General’s agreement with DOJ to divest seven stations, and considers the dissolution of several joint sales agreements to which some of the divested stations are parties to be a public interest benefit, the letter said. Though some JSAs remain in place among some of the 70-plus stations involved in the transaction, “Post-merger Media General” will have the same 2016 deadline to bring the JSAs in line with FCC attribution rules as other broadcasters, the letter said. On the closing of the deal, LIN CEO Vincent Sadusky will become CEO of post-transaction Media General, the letter said.

Recent FCC actions raise the question of whether the commission is getting rid of its Mattoon waiver policy, a broadcast attorney said. The FCC now seems to be backing off the use of these waivers, which allow relocation of an FM translator for use as a fill-in translator by an AM station without requiring multiple “hops,” Wilkinson Barker attorney David Oxenford said Friday in a blog post. Last week, the commission upheld in an order an earlier staff decision to deny a request from Educational Media Foundation to move a transmitter site, and the Audio Division denied a similar request from Hope Christian Church of Marlton in New Jersey. All of the actions and the express proposal in the AM improvement proceeding suggesting that the Mattoon waiver policy may no longer be necessary “indicate that the days of this policy may be numbered,” Oxenford said. Until rules are adopted in the AM revitalization proceeding, there’s still time to file informal comments in that proceeding on the Mattoon waiver policy “if it might affect your operations,” he said.

The FCC Media Bureau approved a Journal Communications and E.W. Scripps plan to combine their broadcast operations into one company and spin off and join their newspapers into another, according to a letter released Friday. Journal agreed to divest one of six radio stations it owns in the Wichita, Kansas, area and KNIN-TV Caldwell, Idaho, to comply with FCC ownership rules, the letter said. The divested stations will be assigned to a trust that will be required within six months to either sell the stations or, if possible, put them into the incentive auction. Otherwise, the stations licenses will be canceled, the bureau said. Scripps will also be granted a failing station waiver in the Green Bay, Wisconsin, designated market area, the letter said. The all-stock transaction will result in Scripps owning 33 TV stations and 34 radio stations, while Journal Media Group will cover 14 markets with the combined newspapers, the companies said in a July news release announcing the deal.

The STELA Reauthorization Act has extended the compliance deadline for when the FCC’s tighter restrictions on joint sales agreements will be applied, the Media Bureau said in a public notice Thursday. The FCC’s rule making attributable same-market JSAs where one licensee sells more than 15 percent of the advertising time of another will now go into effect Dec. 19, 2016 -- six months later than the two year deadline in the FCC rule. The FCC’s tighter JSA rules are part of an ongoing court challenge from NAB in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Scripps and ABC signed a new five-year affiliation agreement that covers 10 Scripps stations through 2019. Stations in Baltimore, Cleveland and San Diego are included in the agreement, Scripps said Wednesday in a news release. Scripps' recently acquired ABC affiliate in Buffalo remains under a separate agreement through 2018, it said.

Entercom agreed to buy Lincoln Financial Media (LFM) and its 15 radio stations from Lincoln Financial Group for $105 million plus working capital, an Entercom news release said. The agreement includes stations in Atlanta, Denver, Miami and San Diego and will bring Entercom’s total to more than 130 stations in 26 markets, the release said. The transaction is subject to FCC and Department of Justice review, and Entercom expects to divest a Denver FM station to comply with ownership rules, the release said. The company expects the deal to close in the second quarter of 2015, the release said.

The FCC’s use of optimization in the incentive auction repacking process “is likely to prove fruitless,” NAB told Commissioner Ajit Pai’s aide Matthew Berry in a meeting Thursday, according to an ex parte filing in docket 12-268. In conducting optimization after the auction, the FCC will have “already backed itself into a sub-optimal corner,” NAB said. “The Commission has unfortunately refused to consider optimization between rounds,” NAB said, saying such a solution would be more effective. “Even the best optimization techniques can do little to help” by the end of the auction, NAB said.

The ATSC plans to release publicly Tuesday its call for proposals on audio codecs for the next-gen ATSC 3.0 broadcast system, sources close to the ATSC told us Monday. Release of the call for proposals, which had been expected for the past month (see 1411060033), is a major step toward building the audio and video compression components of ATSC 3.0. When coupled with its new physical layer, ATSC 3.0's video and audio codecs will make for a next-gen system that will be "far more efficient, far more robust and far more flexible" than the existing ATSC DTV broadcast system, its framers said. HEVC likely will be the backbone video codec for ATSC 3.0, they said. ATSC’s "S34-2" ad hoc group on ATSC 3.0 audio is charged with drafting specs that would allow an "immersive" experience, said the group’s chairman, Jim Starzynski, director and principal audio engineer at NBCUniversal Advanced Engineering, at an ATSC 3.0 "Boot Camp" conference last spring. ATSC 3.0 audio is expected to have two parts, its "personalization" aspect and its immersive home theater surround component, the ad hoc group said. For ATSC 3.0 surround, the ad hoc group for months has been "zoning in" on an object-based, height-rich format it calls "7.1 plus 4," which includes four height speakers, it has said. The announcement to be released Tuesday stresses the personalized and immersive audio experiences ATSC hopes to gain through ATSC 3.0. "Personalization includes enhancement to the control of dialog, use of alternate audio tracks and mixing of assistive audio services, other-language dialog, special commentary, and music and effects," it quotes ATSC President Mark Richer as saying. "Plus, the system will support both the normalization of content loudness and contouring of dynamic range, based on the specific capabilities of a user's fixed or mobile device and its unique sound environment." As for its "immersive audio functionality," it’s hoped ATSC 3.0 will envelop "the listener with precise sound source localization in azimuth, elevation and distance, and provides an increased sense of presence," Richer says in the announcement. "These features can be supported over the listening area, without the need for a large number of physical speakers." Systems submitted in the call for proposals "will be judged discretely and in their entirety, as comprehensive, end-to-end systems for emission of the ATSC signal," the announcement will say. It requests that proponents submit "only complete audio solutions that satisfy ATSC 3.0 system needs, because the ATSC does not intend to develop the ATSC 3.0 audio system out of independent components from multiple sources." The ATSC 3.0 audio system is expected to support audio with video content as well as audio-only content, it says.

Clarification: FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn co-authored with Chairman Tom Wheeler Thursday's commission blog post on recent Media Bureau transaction approvals (see 1412040037).

Journal Broadcast will pay $115,000 for airing commercials paid for by local car dealerships as “Special Reports," said the FCC Enforcement Bureau in a news release Friday. KTNV-TV Las Vegas didn’t disclose that the segments were paid commercials, violating the FCC sponsorship identification rule, the release said. "Broadcasters are not allowed to deceive the public by presenting commercial announcements or other paid programming in the guise of news or editorial content," said Enforcement Bureau Chief Travis LeBlanc. An advertising agency paid KTNV in 2009 to produce and air "Special Reports" about “liquidation sales” at car dealerships in Las Vegas, the release said. “KTNV formatted the commercials in the style of news reports, which featured a KTNV staff person on location at the dealerships posing as a journalist.” The staff person “identified herself as reporting on behalf of channel 13," the release said. The announcements aired “adjacent to the local weekend news,” the release said. Under the settlement, Journal admitted the violation and will begin a three-year compliance plan, the release said.