Attendance at the 2014 NAB Show rose 4 percent to 98,015 from last year, while exhibit space sales were up 7 percent to 945,000 net square feet, said the association in a news release Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1elbkl0). Those percentage increases were less than the square footage increase last year over 2012, and more than attendance rose last year (CD April 12 p15).

Nonprofit backers of broadcast political ad sales disclosure cheered an FCC Media Bureau public notice that fans and foes of such disclosure said (CD April 8 p5) signals the FCC won’t retreat from making all TV stations put online what’s in their political-ad paper files July 1. It’s an “Important Step for Transparency in Political Advertising,” said the headline in a Campaign Legal Center news release Monday (http://bit.ly/1hdp8x4). It lets “a little more sunshine breakthrough [sic] in the multi-billion dollar business of political advertising, despite pushback from some FCC licensees,” said CLC Policy Director Meredith McGehee. The Public Interest Public Airwaves Coalition, which had opposed broadcaster proposals for stations to provide less information to the FCC than what’s available for public inspection in their main studios, “recognizes the dominant role that television plays in our nation’s political contests,” said the coalition in the CLC release. “By putting already public information online, the FCC will ensure that anyone who wants access can get it,” said Lisa Rosenberg, government affairs consultant for the Sunlight Foundation, another coalition member. It’s a “small and inconsequential price for TV stations for the millions in additional revenue they get” from political ads, said Chairman Charles Benton of the Benton Foundation, a coalition member.

Total viewing of VOD prime-time TV content rose 24 percent in 2013, said an industry research firm Tuesday. Rentrak said that as of Dec. 31, two-thirds of broadcast prime-time and of cable-network shows were watched after the third day that the program was originally shown, which is outside the so-called C3 audience rating time period. That provides “the opportunity to generate untold millions in additional advertising dollars for VOD,” said the firm in a news release (http://bit.ly/1qgzYVv). It said an average of 43.3 million TVs last year accessed VOD content, with almost nine hours of time spent viewing a month.

21st Century Fox wants the FCC to renew the license of WWOR-TV Secaucus, N.J., a lawyer at the company reported telling an aide to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, during a meeting held at the request of Wheeler’s office. The agency had probed whether the company then called News Corp. had made misrepresentations over the contested license renewal of the station, required to carry news serving the northern New Jersey audience and not just its community of license as with all other U.S. TV stations (CD Feb 18/11 p6). WWOR “served the tastes, needs and interests of Northern New Jersey throughout the preceding term of its license,” said a 21st Century Fox filing posted Monday in docket 07-260 (http://bit.ly/PNzFEC). “The Commission consistently has made clear that WWOR-TV’s public service obligation is no different in kind or degree than any other station’s obligation, except that WWOR-TV historically was tasked with serving the area of Northern New Jersey within its service contour.” The agency doesn’t “sit in judgment of a broadcast licensee’s editorial discretion,” 21st Century Fox’s lawyer reported having told Wheeler’s aide.

A proof of concept (POC) study shows that in certain markets using local TV and radio together for advertising doubles the reach, Nielsen and CBS said Monday. In the five markets measured in the POC, an advertiser could reach from 84 percent to as high as 93 percent of all adults within a month by leveraging both local TV and radio, Nielsen said in a news release (http://bit.ly/1h9bP0D). Advertisers would be able to see the benefits of combining the buying of these media and dayparts, or times of day, together, it said. Full results of the study will be presented Tuesday at the NAB Show in Las Vegas, Nielsen and CBS said.

Florida TV stations are testing the enhanced alerting capabilities of the mobile emergency alert system (M-EAS). WESH-TV Orlando, an NBC affiliate, is testing the M-EAS by demonstrating how a banner announcement could be overlaid on mobile TV signals transmitted from the broadcaster and received on a consumer device, said the Mobile EAS Coalition in a news release Monday (http://prn.to/1strP1R). West Palm Beach stations WFLX (Fox), WPTV (NBC) and WPBF (ABC) plan to add M-EAS capability to their existing emergency alerting equipment to enable M-EAS “to be received on two types of mobile TV consumer receivers designed to bring mobile digital TV to smartphones and tablets,” it said.

A company subject to shelved plans to buy a station from Sinclair and other changes as part of Sinclair’s planned buy of Allbritton Communications’ TV stations sought “assurance” from the FCC that the Sinclair divestitures would serve the public interest so the deals could be rekindled. Sinclair had proposed to end (CD March 21 p16) its proposed deal to let Howard Stirk Holdings buy WMMP Charleston, S.C., because it involved joint sales agreements (JSAs), said Stirk in a filing posted Monday in docket 13-203 Monday (http://bit.ly/1gEPKSF). Since Sinclair proposed not to have WMMP sold to Stirk, the agency said it would allow JSA ownership-quota attribution rule waivers (CD April 1 p4), said Stirk. That was in a 3-2 order adopted to crack down on some JSAs. If Stirk gets a waiver, it said Sinclair would consider selling to it certain rights associated with WABM Birmingham, Ala., and to enter agreements with Stirk to allow it to buy assets of WLYH Lancaster, Pa. Sinclair also had proposed to end its plan to sell WABM to a third party with sharing arrangements, among other changes to Sinclair/Allbritton TV involving stations assets of which Stirk may now seek to get. Stirk said its “established record as a broadcaster,” and “long and distinguished record” of sole owner Armstrong Williams, meet waiver standards.

The FCC approved Gray Television’s deal to buy 12 Hoak Media stations, and several related transactions involving former Gray and Hoak stations being bought by Gray-affiliated Excalibur Broadcasting, Nexstar and Mission Broadcasting, said Gray in a news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/1jc9Wjk). Three stations involved in the $300 million deal remain unapproved. Some of the transactions had to be changed to comply with a March 12 Media Bureau public notice that announced extra scrutiny for deals involving sharing arrangements and financial entanglements among ostensibly separately owned stations, Gray said. “The changes included removing Gray’s guarantee of Excalibur’s financing to acquire Excalibur’s new stations and eliminating a put/call option on Excalibur’s new stations.” The deal involved stations in Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Nebraska and North and South Dakota. The transactions are expected to close in Q1 or Q2, said Gray.

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology’s plans to use the TVStudy software to conduct the incentive auction instead of the OET-69 software oversteps the agency’s authority and violates both the Spectrum Act and the Administrative Procedures Act, said NAB in comments filed with the FCC Friday (http://bit.ly/1jbr2h1). “The Spectrum Act requires the Commission to use ‘all reasonable efforts to preserve’ coverage areas and populations served for each broadcast television licensee, as those values were calculated using the ‘methodology’ in effect on February 22, 2012, when the Spectrum Act was enacted,” said NAB. That includes the OET-69 methodology and the software used to generate interference predictions and calculate broadcaster coverage area, NAB said. Not using OET-69 carries “a strong presumption of unlawfulness,” NAB said. The broadcast association also criticized the FCC for allowing OET to publicize updates and change the TVStudy software through updates to a website rather than the normal public notice process, and through delegated authority rather than commission votes. “The Commission should not resolve major outstanding issues in the incentive auction proceeding at the Bureau and Office level,” NAB said. OET also deletes the prior version of the TVStudy software from its website as it’s updated, NAB said, “thereby depriving the public of a comprehensive record of OET’s actions.” The commission should “observe the requirements of the Spectrum Act and the APA now, before stakeholders commit to participating in a flawed proceeding that will be cumbersome and expensive to unwind,” said NAB.

Any broadcasters that previously engaged in joint retransmission consent negotiations or have agreements to do so should begin to consider alternative plans following the FCC report and order prohibiting such negotiations by competing top-four stations, said a broadcast attorney. The FCC approved the order along with an FNPRM at Monday’s monthly commission meeting (CD April 1 p11). The prohibition will take effect after the effective date of the report and order, “regardless of any terms included in any pre-existing agreements between broadcasters allowing or requiring such negotiations,” said Fletcher Heald’s Dan Kirkpatrick in a post on the broadcast law firm’s blog (http://bit.ly/1jZd5Xc). Existing agreements entered into as a result of joint negotiation won’t be disturbed, “but no new agreements based on joint negotiations will be allowed, even if negotiations have already begun,” he said. The order lists activities that define joint negotiation, including “any informal, formal, tacit or other agreement and/or conduct that signals or is designed to facilitate collusion” on retransmission consent terms between top-four TV stations that aren’t commonly owned and serve the same designated market area, the order said (http://bit.ly/1jZekFI). The commission declined to address whether joint negotiation by same-market multichannel video programming distributors should be considered a violation of the duty to negotiate retrans in good faith, it said. The FNPRM seeks further comment on whether syndicated exclusivity rules are still needed to protect broadcasters’ ability to compete in the video market, it said. It also asks to what extent would local stations’ audiences “likely be diverted to distant stations carried on cable systems if the exclusivity rules were eliminated?” Joint negotiations probably would be ill-advised, even if an MVPD wants to negotiate in that manner, Kirkpatrick said. “The new rules don’t provide any exemption for MVPD consent.” Regardless of what happens with exclusivity rules, absent a court challenge, the issue of joint retrans negotiations between same-market top-four stations has now been decided, he said.