The FCC shouldn’t hold broadcast licensees responsible for errors or discrepancies resulting from proposed changes to the way geographic coordinates of stations are calculated, said NAB in comments posted Wednesday in docket 22-227. The agency should also specify land mobile channel reservations that don't require protection by broadcasters, or rule that reservations that sat idle for over 50 years don’t need to be protected. NAB expressed concern about adjusting FCC rules to reflect the agency staff’s current practice for calculating a station’s effective radiated power: “The proposed use of ‘staff’s current practice’ rather than the explicit mathematical definitions in the rules for determination of effective radiated power is ill-defined, will lead to confusion,” and “raises questions concerning the apparent unofficial amendment of Commission rules by practice without notice and comment.” The FCC should retain provisions allowing low-VHF stations to maximize both power and height to increase their service, or make clear that changes don’t preclude power increases above zone maximums by low-VHF stations, said Marantha Broadcasting.

Pennsylvania radio broadcaster Roger Wahl’s FCC license was revoked, said an Enforcement Bureau order in Wednesday’s Daily Digest. Wahl’s license for WQZS(FM) Meyersdale was designated for hearing after he pleaded guilty to multiple crimes involving allegedly attempting to have a woman sexually assaulted. Wahl took nude pictures of the victim using a camera he concealed in her bathroom, impersonated her on a dating website, and later tried to destroy the evidence of what he had done, said the EB order. “His conduct was adjudicated to be entirely willful, comprising a sequence of acts performed over time and calculated to harm his victim,” said the order. "And even though Mr. Wahl has typically complied with FCC rules and policies, the record reflects no efforts by Mr. Wahl to remedy these wrongs." The hearing proceeding for Wahl’s license was terminated by FCC Administrative Law Judge Jane Halprin in August (see 2208020053) after he missed multiple deadlines with no explanation.

A pilot project using ATSC 3.0 to disseminate advanced emergency information was launched in Washington, D.C., and Virginia’s Arlington and Fairfax counties by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments and One Media 3.0. The program will provide “free, over-the-air redundancy” to emergency messaging currently sent by local governments via text, email, and social media, said a news release Tuesday. One Media’s parent company, Sinclair Broadcast, will also provide “rich” supplementary information to those messages using newsrooms at its local TV stations. The pilot program will initially use the facilities WIAV-CD Washington, D.C., and then migrate to ABC affiliate station WJLA-TV Washington, D.C, which has broader reach, the release said. “Rather than simple text crawls across a TV screen that a tornado is approaching, for example, NextGen Broadcast powers a much more robust signal that can render real time doppler radar, weather images, evacuation routes, shelter locations, flood maps -- and do it in multiple languages,” the release said. The pilot is an outgrowth of an Advanced Warning and Response Network (AWARN) Alliance roundtable event in D.C. in December (see 2212080044, the release said. “Anyone in the WIAV viewing area who has a NextGen TV set or a NextGen set-top converter box should be able to receive the emergency messages from WIAV,” the release said. The program will eventually incorporate other devices and jurisdictions, the companies said.

The FCC is seeking comment on an NAB petition for an additional extension of a waiver of a 2013 rule requiring broadcasters to provide audio description on a second audio stream of emergency information conveyed through graphics, said a public notice in docket 12-107 Monday. Compliance was originally required by 2015, but the agency granted an 18-month waiver and has repeatedly extended it, most recently by five years in 2018. NAB requested a two-year extension for the current waiver, which expires May 26. NAB says it remains “unable to identify a workable solution based on existing technology that can perform the functions required by the rule,” the PN said. “We seek comment on NAB’s request, including whether two years is the appropriate timeframe for any extension.” Comments are due April 24, replies May 1.

Twitter labeling NPR a “US state-affiliated media” Tuesday is “unacceptable,” said NPR CEO John Lansing in a release Wednesday. That’s a description that doesn’t apply to NPR under Twitter’s own guidelines, Lansing said. Twitter’s guidelines list state-affiliated media as not having editorial independence. “NPR stands for freedom of speech and holding the powerful accountable. It is unacceptable for Twitter to label us this way,” Lansing said. “ A vigorous, vibrant free press is essential to the health of our democracy.” NPR’s Twitter account still bore the label Wednesday. Twitter didn’t comment.

Snake River Radio’s KPCQ(AM) Chubbuck, Idaho won’t have its license canceled but will receive a short-term license renewal of only one year, ruled FCC Administrative Law Judge Jane Halprin in an order Wednesday (see 2212130058). The preponderance of the evidence showed Snake River’s conflicting statements to the Media Bureau about its tower being dismantled were the result of a misunderstanding by the company’s attorney. The short license term is due to Snake River’s multiple public file violations and long periods of silence, Halprin said. “Short term renewal will give the Commission a chance to properly evaluate Snake River’s continued adherence to the Communications Act and Commission rules,” the order said. Snake River argued a shorter-term license is the more appropriate punishment for its violations, and in her order, Halprin said the matter likely would never have been designated for hearing if it weren't for the concerns about the tower discrepancies.

Prolonging the ATSC 3.0 substantially similar requirement “risks making the backwards compatibility issue” worse because it will drag out the 3.0 transition, said NAB in a video conference with an aide to FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks Friday, according to an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 16-142. Broadcasters are “hamstrung by capacity constraints” in the ATSC 3.0 transition, NAB said. “With multiple partners sharing a single ATSC 3.0 facility at the outset, broadcasters are exceedingly unlikely to have the available bandwidth to offer the compelling service enhancements needed to help spur consumer interest in ATSC 3.0,” NAB said. NAB “knows of no station that has switched its primary programming stream from HD to SD through more than 60 market launches” since ATSC 3.0 was approved more than five years ago, NAB said. The trade groups also urged the FCC to relax rules on broadcasters hosting one another's multicast channels during the transition. "No party -- even the notoriously consumer-friendly cable lobby -- has been able to provide a cogent articulation of any potential public interest harm lateral hosting could potentially cause," NAB said.

The “time has long since passed” to be concerned that broadcasters might degrade their ATSC 1.0 service to roll out 3.0, wrote BitPath CEO John Hane in a letter to the FCC posted in docket 16-142 Friday. A draft item on sunsetting some ATSC 3.0 requirements is on circulation on the 10th floor (see 2303130068). After four years of transition, “with stations in many dozens of markets providing well over 800 streams of programming in ATSC 3.0,” no one “has heard the slightest whimper of complaint of any actual service loss or degradation to viewers, or of any inconvenience to MVPDs,” Hane said. Broadcasters aren’t seeking to relax some rules on the transition to degrade their services, he said: “They need different transition rules to continue introducing and to improve NextGen TV service while continuing to preserve the greatest possible degree of legacy DTV service.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit should reverse the FCC’s hearing designation order (HDO) and require the agency to grant the Standard/Tegna applications rather than remand the matter to the commission, said the broadcast parties to the deal in an appellant brief filed in docket 10-83 Thursday. “Given that only 53 days remain to complete the transaction, there is reason to fear that the FCC could run out the clock on remand to consummate its pocket veto of the applications,” said Standard General, Tegna, and Cox Media Group. The evidence in favor of granting the deal is “overwhelming,” so there's “thus no reason to hold a hearing,” the broadcasters said. “There is no further factfinding or deliberation the agency could conduct that would shed additional light on the transactions.” The brief again raises the broadcasters’ previous arguments on the FCC outreaching its authority by issuing the HDO based on questions concerning retransmission consent and job losses, and on the constitutionality of administrative law judges. ALJ Jane Halprin failed to comply with the HDO because she hasn’t set a schedule with a set date for the resolution of the FCC hearing proceeding, the broadcasters said. A status conference to determine the schedule is set for April 26. “The proper remedy is reversal, not mere remand,” the broadcasters said.

The FCC unanimously approved an NPRM seeking comment on proposals for the agency to implement the Low Power Protection Act, which would create a window during which select low-power TV stations could convert to Class A (see 2303240052). The proposals largely align with the LPPA, which restricted the window to stations that carry three hours per week of local programming in markets of 95,000 households or fewer. The NPRM tentatively concludes that translators won’t be eligible for the window, and neither will be the small number of LPTV stations that haven’t shifted to digital. The NPRM also seeks comment on possible alternatives to the Nielsen definition of a TV market, the designated market area, such as the metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) and rural service areas (RSAs) proposed by the LPTV Broadcasters’ Association. “These classifications, which are based on population, appear to have nothing to do with market assignment information or determining television broadcast station markets, unlike Nielsen DMAs,” the NPRM says. “We seek comment on LPTVBA’s position and on any alternative means of delineating DMAs using a system of dividing television broadcast station licensees into local markets.”