Passage of the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act is “vital to broadcasters’ mission to create an informed citizenry,” wrote former NAB President Gordon Smith in The Hill Tuesday. “The rapid, often anticompetitive expansion of the dominant Big Tech platforms has upended the advertising marketplace, posing a grave threat to the industry,” Smith said. “Left unchecked, Americans will lose access to the most trusted local news as broadcasters and newspapers face an uncertain and daunting future,” Smith said. The JCPA “drastically favors broadcasters over newspapers and gives the biggest rewards to massive media conglomerates rather than local newspapers,” said Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld in a blog post Tuesday. Employee caps on eligible beneficiaries of the law don’t apply to broadcasters, and the language in it could give broadcasters more votes than newspapers, Feld said. The proposed law “is not a government handout, nor would it create a new regulatory regime,” Smith said. “It would simply create a framework for news publishers to negotiate on equal terms with the Big Tech behemoths in the marketplace.”

Rohde & Schwartz endorses Qualcomm’s proposal that the FCC seek comment in the same proceeding as ATSC 3.0 for deploying the 5G Broadcast standard for over-the-air TV content delivery to mobile devices (see 2208080065), said the broadcast equipment vendor in reply comments Tuesday in docket 16-142. Adding 5G Broadcast support to “existing and upcoming” smartphones and tablets “is just a matter of software and middleware adjustment and upgrades,” said R&S. “In other terms, there will be no need for additional silicon or any hardware changes within the same mobile devices,” it said. “Based on its flexible design, 5G Broadcast can be implemented hand-in-hand with ATSC 3.0 within the same 6 MHz channel.”

The FCC Enforcement Bureau wants Administrative Law Judge Jane Halprin to compel broadcaster Snake River Radio to produce evidence it promised in the license hearing proceeding for its station KPCQ(AM) Chubbuck, Idaho, said a motion for leave and a motion to compel posted in docket 22-53 Monday. The proceeding concerns KPCQ’s period of silence and whether Snake River’s tower was removed during some of that time (see 2205190048). Snake River promised to provide evidence that several photos of the station’s tower were taken during the period the Enforcement Bureau is arguing it was removed, but the broadcaster missed an Aug. 12 deadline and since then hasn’t responded to repeated EB requests, the filings said.

Geobroadcast Solutions’ testing of its ZoneCast geotargeted radio technology wasn’t comprehensive and ignored recommendations from chief technology officers and chief engineers at Beasley, Audacy, Cumulus and iHeart, said a joint filing from those CTOs and engineers posted in docket 20-401 Thursday. Those companies oppose the FCC’s geotargeted radio proposal, and Thursday’s filing is a response to a GBS ex parte filing that said the companies declined to offer input on the tests. “These tests have addressed all the specific questions pertinent to the decision before the FCC that have been raised in this proceeding,” said the GBS filing. GBS has “consistently presented the Commission with contrived field testing designed to minimize the true interference impact of its proprietary ZoneCasting proposal,” the filing said. The companies provided input to GBS in 2020 on the parameters for a proposed field test in San Francisco, but that test didn’t happen and the subsequent field tests performed by GBS weren’t as comprehensive, the filing said. “The undersigned CTOs gave their attention and knowledgeable input” as to “the minimum necessary field tests for ZoneCasting,” but GBS “misunderstood -- or ignored -- those parameters” in the tests it did do, the filing said. GBS didn’t comment.

Comments are due Oct. 3, replies Oct. 18, on America-CV’s petition for a declaratory ruling allowing it to be up to 100% foreign owned, said a public notice in docket 22-213. The request involves a bankruptcy reorganization that would transfer ACV’s four TV stations in Puerto Rico and one in Miami to Vasallo TV Group, which is owned by Spanish citizen Carlos Vasallo, the filing said.

The U.S. broadcasting industry is expected to reach $36.47 billion in total advertising revenue in 2022, said a report from S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Kagan Tuesday. That’s an increase of 12.9% from $32.31 billion in 2021, returning to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels, S&P Global said in a release. Spending in the 2022 midterm election is expected to reach $3.49 billion, an increase of 15% from the 2018 midterm elections, the report said. “Radio's lower ad cost, local audience and relatively high return on investment compared to other media will keep it relevant, although digital investments point to future growth opportunities with the spot ad market for radio expected to decline over the forecast period,” said the report.

The FCC Media Bureau approved two channel substitutions from Maine Public Broadcasting, said orders Monday. In docket 22-150, WCBB Augusta will switch from Channel 10 to 20, and in docket 22-215 WMEB-TV Orono will switch from 9 to 22.

The only way to know if merger conditions could make Standard/Tegna favorable to the public interest is for the FCC to grant public interest groups’ motion to require more information from the companies, said the Communications Workers of America's NewsGuild and National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians sectors and Common Cause in a call with Media Bureau Chief Holly Saurer and Media Bureau staff Thursday. “Without such information, neither the Commission nor objecting parties can even begin to assess how any conditions might be constructed,” said an ex parte filing in docket 22-166. The groups want additional information on how the combined company would staff and manage the purchased Tegna stations and seek “any document, such as a presentation, final agreement, e-mail or text communication” on future staffing plans “whether made to potential lenders, investors, board members, executives, or third parties.” The groups are also seeking more information about the investors funding the deal, the filing said. “Without that information, and regardless of how interests are portrayed as mere lending arrangements or passive ownership, it is not possible” to judge “whether they will be in a position to exercise ownership in ways that would require those interests to be denominated as attributable,” the filing said. The filing also asked the FCC to require submission of portions of the merger agreement that Standard/Tegna argued aren’t germane, including sections dealing with employee benefit plans, tax matters and indebtedness. Standard General didn't comment.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau issued several notices of illegal pirate radio broadcasting this week, said letters in Thursday’s Daily Digest. Letters were sent to Clearview in Bethesda, Maryland, and to Steve Tiamfook and Russell Evelyn and 100 E 92nd LLC, both in Brooklyn, New York, warning of possible forfeitures of over $2 million for “entities found to willfully and knowingly suffer (i.e., permit) a third party” to make unauthorized broadcasts on their property. The recipients have 10 days to respond to the agency, the letters said.

The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) has international support, said the News Media Alliance in a news release Thursday. Multinational organizations and groups in Canada, Australia, Europe and Latin America endorsed the proposed legislation, NMA said. “Particularly notable is the support from Australia” where similar rules were adopted “to address bargaining power imbalances between Australian publishers and Big Tech,” NMA said. The Australian law led to payouts to publishers from Facebook and Google. Canada, Europe and the U.K. are working toward passing similar laws, NMA said. In Australia, “compensation accrued to date amounts to approximately 20 percent of Australian journalists’ salaries and likely more than 20 percent of eligible publishers’ combined" EBITDA, NMA said. The JCPA is set for Senate Judiciary Committee markup in September.