The FCC’s online database of “pirate” unauthorized broadcasters went live Monday, covering the period from Jan. 24, 2020 to Dec. 31, 2022. “Subsequent updates will be published semi-annually,” said the database webpage. The database stems from provisions in the 2020 Preventing Illegal Radio Abuse Through Enforcement Act, which also increased penalties for unauthorized broadcasts and empowered the FCC to go after the landlords of properties hosting pirate broadcasts. While the Pirate Act database was originally due within 90 days of the bill’s 2020 approval, no funding was included for implementation and its enactment was closely followed by the COVID-19 pandemic, delaying FCC action, an agency spokesperson said. “Commission staff was nevertheless able to perform basic planning in anticipation of both conditions ending,” the spokesperson said. Funding for implementing the act was approved in March, the agency said. The database allows users to search for violations by state and links to individual citations, displaying violations on a map of the U.S. The database’s FCC page also includes a link labeled “Licensed AM and FM Radio Station Database” -- another database required by the Pirate Act -- that sends users to the “Facility Search” page of the FCC’s licensing and management system. The FCC also released a Pirate Act report to Congress Tuesday. According to the report, the agency has posted six full-time positions for pirate enforcement and is prepared to buy six mobile direction-finding vehicles for those hires to operate. “Purchase of the additional six vehicles has been delayed, however, until a GSA [General Service Administration] purchasing window opens.” The report also said the agency developed a plan for enforcement sweeps and issued 21 notices to property owners of potential enforcement action.
Competition from digital advertising and tech companies, broadcast ownership rules and FCC regulatory fees lead a list of policy priorities for the 118th U.S. Congress released by NAB Thursday. “Local broadcast stations must be available on all platforms and every device to remain relevant to audiences and advertisers,” said the NAB policy agenda. “But Big Tech platforms have a stranglehold on digital advertising.” The FCC should respond to rising competition from tech companies by relaxing ownership rules and increasing the payor base for regulatory fees, NAB said. The FCC should also refresh the record on applying retransmission consent to streaming services and “maintain a reasonable, flexible framework for NEXTGEN TV deployment,” NAB said. The policy agenda also calls for Congress to avoid imposing a performance tax on radio stations, to revive the minority tax certificate, and to oppose legislation that would change the way tax laws handle advertising expenses. Changes that would make advertising expenses nondeductible for businesses “raise significant First Amendment concerns and ignore the important consumer benefits that advertising provides,” NAB said. The policy agenda didn't specifically mention the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, which Senate Antitrust Subcommittee Chair Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., unsuccessfully tried to pass via the FY 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (see 2212070056). The measure would create a limited antitrust exemption to allow news publishers to collectively bargain with tech platforms for the use of their content.
Comments on the 2022 FCC Quadrennial Review are due March 3, replies March 20, said the FCC Media Bureau in a public notice in docket 22-459 Tuesday. The 2022 QR order was released Dec. 22 and published in the Federal Register Tuesday.
An FCC rejection of the Standard General/Tegna transaction would “have a chilling effect on future investment in this sector, particularly for minority owners and sources of financing,” said Standard Managing Partner Soohyung Kim Friday in a letter to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. Warren had urged FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel to block the deal in a letter last week (see 2301120044). Kim asked Warren for a meeting at her earliest convenience and pushed back on her comments that concessions offered by Standard on avoiding layoffs and higher retransmission consent rates wouldn’t be effective. “The binding commitments we have made, and some have questioned, are not deviations from our strategy -- they are formal affirmations of it,” Kim said. He also committed not to enter any sharing agreements with Cox Media Group stations. CMG is owned by Apollo Global Management, which is also a participant in the Standard/Tegna deal. Standard committed to keeping newsroom jobs while saying that blocking the deal would leave Tegna “subject to the intense pressure of the public markets to cut costs as the economy slows,” Kim said. Warren and federal regulators should take into account that the deal would make Standard the nation’s largest minority- and women-owned broadcaster, Kim said. “If that fact means nothing to regulators in their public interest assessment,” other minority entrepreneurs are less likely to enter the business, he said. “We appreciate Sen. Warren’s concerns and are confident that through our binding commitments and the fundamentals of this transaction we have more than addressed them,” said a Standard spokesperson. “We will continue to work with the FCC and DOJ as they seek to conclude their review and we look forward to building a local broadcasting company that will serve all the communities in which we will operate.”
The FCC Media Bureau’s latest report on broadcast ownership -- based on data from 2021 but released Friday -- shows few changes from the 2021 report, which was based on 2019 data (see 2109070051). The new report shows no change in racial minorities holding a majority interest in 4% of commercial broadcast stations while women have a majority ownership interest in 9% of commercial broadcast stations, up from 8%. Friday’s report says 3% of full-power commercial TV stations were Black-owned, and 2% of FM stations. In 2019 the TV figure was 1.3% and the FM number was the same. U.S. population data included in the report said the 2021 U.S. population “was almost evenly split between men and women,” and just over 40% identified as belonging to a racial or ethnic minority group, the report said.
The concessions on retransmission consent and jobs offered by Standard General are “an obvious attempt” to weaken future legal challenges to the Standard/Tegna deal, and the FCC should block it, said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in a letter to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel Wednesday. Reps. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Frank Pallone, D-N.J., have also weighed in against Standard/Tegna (see 2210060033). “Behavioral remedies like those offered by the parties are historically ineffective” and “should provide no comfort that these Wall Street firms will not engage in anticompetitive practices,” Warren said. Such remedies were the rationale for a federal court ruling that the T-Mobile/Sprint transaction didn’t violate antitrust laws, but they didn’t prevent T-Mobile from taking anticompetitive actions against Dish after the deal was complete, Warren said. “It will be similarly challenging for the FCC to monitor the parties in this transaction and ensure that they are complying with any required remedies,” Warren said. The deal would lead to higher retransmission consent costs being passed on to consumers, layoffs and collusion, Warren said. Citing a quote from FTC Chair Kahn urging agencies to block problematic deals outright, Warren urged Rosenworcel to use the FCC’s authority “aggressively in this matter and in other matters going forward.” Standard General didn't comment.
The FCC Media Bureau seeks comment in docket 23-14 on Blue Ridge Public Television’s channel substitution request for WBRA-TV Roanoke, Virginia, said an NPRM in Wednesday's Daily Digest. Blue Ridge wants to shift the station from Channel *3 to *13. Comments will be due 30 days after the NPRM is published in the Federal Register, replies 45 days after publication.
The FCC should renew the license of Snake River Radio’s KPCQ(AM) Chubbuck, Idaho, for a shortened term rather than take the station’s license over its period of silence (see 2212130058), said Snake River’s reply submission Wednesday in docket 22-53, the station’s license proceeding before FCC Administrative Law Judge Jane Halprin. The station’s conflicting submissions about whether its tower had been dismantled stem from a misunderstanding in a single email to the agency from Snake River’s attorney Jeffrey Timmons, the broadcaster said. Its subsequent communications demonstrated that the tower was still standing, the reply filing said. “In hindsight, of course, Snake River wishes that it had explained the differences at that time,” said the filing. “But the fact is that Snake River has explained that discrepancy now, as supported by the August 5, 2018 email which demonstrates that it was just a drafting error by counsel.” The public interest wouldn't be served by taking the station’s license “as that would discourage parties from investing the effort and substantial funds risked to try to save a failing station,” the filing said. “The Commission should encourage -- rather than punish -- entrepreneurs willing to take the risks and invest both the time and funds necessary to try to save failing stations.”
The Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the U.S. Telecommunications Services Sector, known as Team Telecom, is reviewing a foreign ownership request involving a number of TV and radio stations in Puerto Rico, said a DOJ letter in docket 23-2. The letter concerns a petition for declaratory ruling from Searchlight II HMT (see 2301040065) seeking permission for its parent company, Hemisphere Media Group, to be up to 100% foreign owned. That request is connected with pending broadcast station transactions at the FCC involving Searchlight subsidiary Televicentro of Puerto Rico and Univision. The deal would lead to the stations being controlled by “certain Searchlight investment fund entities organized in the Cayman Islands that are ultimately controlled by foreign individuals.” The FCC will be notified when responses to Team Telecom’s initial request for information are complete and the 120-day initial review period can begin, the letter said.
The FCC Media Bureau granted two channel substitution requests, said orders in Monday’s Daily Digest. Gray Television’s WMC-TV Memphis will shift from Channel 5 to 30, and RNN Boston License’s WWDP Norwell, Massachusetts, will move from 10 to 36, the orders said.