NAB President Curtis LeGeyt urged lawmakers to address “the monopolistic power” of “tech giants,” in a column in The Hill Monday supporting the proposed Journalism Competition and Protection Act. “The economic foundation of local journalism is under assault,” LeGeyt said. The bill would allow an exemption from antitrust rules to let news organizations collectively negotiate with tech platforms over rights to their content. “News outlets have almost no leverage when dealing with tech giants regarding the terms for how online content is compensated or displayed on these platforms,” LeGeyt said. Tech platforms “can place a fact-checked story from a reputable news outlet next to flashy clickbait” or “set a minimum content length that exceeds a typical news segment before a video receives compensation,” LeGeyt said. The bill would “create a fair deal” to “benefit news consumers,” LeGeyt said. Meta and Alphabet didn’t comment.

The American Militia Association seeks permission to intervene in the hearing proceeding for the license of Pennsylvania broadcaster Roger Wahl (see 2204290073), said a motion posted in docket Tuesday. “WQZS is not the only community radio station in Meyersdale, Pennsylvania and County of Somerset, contrary to statements made by the licensee in its representations to the public,” said AMA, which operates a station and has a construction permit in the same market. “Allowing Roger Wahl and his licensed station WQZS to violate such rules and standards would be unfair to the Petitioner and the impacted community,” AMA said. “This motion to intervene is the only remaining appropriate avenue now in order to offer its evidence against Wahl.”

The FCC Media Bureau approved a request by Scripps Broadcasting to change KBZK Bozeman, Montana’s channel from 13 to 27, said an order in docket 22-114 Tuesday.

The full FCC rejected Chinese Voice of Golden City’s latest arguments about its low-power FM license, said an order on review Tuesday. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in December denied Golden City’s appeal over allegations it was broadcasting from an unauthorized location (see 2111300058). Golden City argued an Enforcement Bureau April 2021 letter of inquiry on whether it was still broadcasting after its license expired in 2018 was outside the agency’s authority while it’s D.C. Circuit case was ongoing. “We reject CVGC’s argument that its pending appeal of its license expiration stripped the Commission of its jurisdiction in this enforcement matter regarding post-expiration conduct.” the order said. “Merely filing an administrative or judicial appeal of a decision finding that a license expired” doesn’t “work automatically to extend or reinstate the license,” the order said.

The FCC should act to raise the national TV audience reach limit and “cannot justify cutting back on the existing level of TV station ownership permitted nationwide,” based on the 2022 video marketplace, said NAB in an ex parte letter posted Monday in docket 17-318. That market has grown even more competitive since NAB last filed comments on the issue in 2018, the filing said. “Tightening a broadcast-only rule in a marketplace with almost unlimited video content for consumers and unprecedented options for advertisers would be arbitrary and capricious,” NAB said. The FCC “lacks any rational basis for imposing a stricter national TV ownership limit, including through the guise of a ‘technical’ rule change eliminating the UHF discount,” said the filing. Broadcasters have said they expect the FCC under Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel to target the UHF discount, but industry executives told us they don’t expect that to occur until the commission has a Democratic majority.

Germany’s regional public service broadcasts are now integrated in DTS AutoStage, bringing imagery, station logos, song titles and artist and album information to vehicles’ infotainment displays, said Xperi and German broadcaster association ARD Monday. AutoStage enables continued station listening from local broadcast stations when the vehicle drives out of range. For broadcasters, AutoStage allows stations to manage their services, station information and streams in one place. DTS AutoStage is ISO 9001-certified; its content is sourced from more than 80,000 radio stations and 100,000 broadcasts, and it has over 40 million tracks, 4 million albums and a million artist bios that are aggregated, curated and personalized, they said. DTS AutoStage also has content partnerships with BBC, Bauer, Cumulus, Global Radio, NPO, Audacy, Beasley, Cox Media, radiko, Radio Maria, FM World and others.

Efforts to update broadcasting protections for the digital age made little progress at last week's meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), broadcasters told us. "There was no significant movement ... and certainly not a leap forward as broadcasters had hoped for," emailed Erica Redler, North American Broadcasters Association legal adviser. The World Broadcasting Unions' wish list was for the SCCR to commit to finalizing a draft treaty suitable to become a basic proposal for a diplomatic conference by year's end, and for it to ask WIPO to convene such a conference in 2023. Broadcasters "did not expect that there could be consensus on a new draft" at the May 9-13 hybrid meeting, so they asked for a second meeting this year, Redler said. "To help ensure clarity and common understanding" on its scope, the U.K. "proposed a further, focused technical discussion, enabling all member states the opportunity to feed into and develop the new draft text," emailed an Intellectual Property Office spokesperson. Signal theft costs millions in lost earnings every year, and protecting broadcasters and creators is an important issue for the U.K., he said. The committee "discussed whether to hold a special technical session dedicated to this agenda item before the end of 2022," but there was no consensus, said a summary by Chairman Aziz Dieng, of Senegal's Copyright Office. Governments were invited to send further comments, suggestions and questions by July 13, and the SCCR agreed to meet twice next year, it said. The last committee meeting, in July, had strong criticism from some member countries, observers and broadcasters over several issues (see 2107010001).

The wireless industry isn’t contributing its fair share of regulatory costs and broadcasters are being charged too much, said NAB in a call with the FCC Office of General Counsel and the Office of Managing Director Tuesday, according to an ex parte filing posted in docket 21-190 Friday. NAB said it “has no idea” how it's “remotely possible” for the Wireless Bureau to spend as much time and work as it does on auctions, “especially in light" of the auctions division no longer being housed in the bureau and the wireless industry "not contributing its fair share" to funding offices such as the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau. NAB also renewed calls for the FCC to expand the base of payors to include “broadband internet-service providers, Big Tech companies, and other unlicensed spectrum users” that generate work for the FCC. “Continuing to require broadcasters to pay for broadband activities that do not benefit them is plainly unlawful,” NAB said.

Standard General, Tegna and Apollo Global Management haven’t provided enough information to the FCC on Standard General’s $8.6 billion proposed buy of Tegna and the agency should grant a 30-day extension on the due date for petitions to deny the deal and request more info from the companies, said Public Knowledge, Common Cause and the Communications Workers of America's NewsGuild sector in a joint filing posted in docket 22-162 Friday. Currently, petitions to deny the deal are due May 23. The “shell game” of complex station swaps in the deal have been “contrived by a New York finance firm” solely to trigger automatic retransmission fee increases through after-acquired clauses, said the filing. Standard, Tegna and Apollo didn’t immediately comment on the filing. “These transactions appear to be nothing more than financial engineering and sophisticated price-gouging,” said the groups. “They create the potential to raise prices to consumers during an inflationary period and slash journalism jobs right when we need them most.” The filing also raises questions about the degree of connection between Apollo and Standard, since Apollo owns a stake in the broadcaster. Though the deal would keep Apollo’s interest in the new entity non-controlling, it contains “loopholes” that could allow Apollo access to Standard’s retrans contract information and allow Apollo to influence Standard’s actions, the groups said. The filings call for the deal participants to provide retransmission consent agreements, submissions to DOJ and investor presentations, among other information.

The FCC Media Bureau approved Gray Television’s request to change the channel of WDTV Weston, West Virginia, from 5 to 33, said an order posted Thursday in docket 22-112.