The FCC Enforcement Bureau issued several notices of illegal pirate radio broadcasting to addresses in New York last week, according to letters in Monday’s Daily Digest. Letters were sent to Jean Yvon Francois and Elcie Francois-Lapomarede in Brooklyn, Michelle Hepburn in Mount Vernon, the Rachel Bridge Corp. in New York City, Paul Wilfrid in Cambria Heights, and 2062 Holding Corp. in the Bronx, 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 subjects of the letters have 10 days to respond to the agency, the letters said.

FCC Administrative Law Judge Jane Halprin denied a request from broadcaster Arm & Rage to enlarge the issues in its license proceeding (see 2206170063) to include questions on whether the revocation for character reasons of the license for WJBE (AM) Powell, Tennessee, would violate the First Amendment, said an order in Friday’s Daily Digest. The character requirement, “has been upheld by the District of Columbia Circuit as a rational means to evaluate whether someone possesses the requisite character to hold an FCC license,” said the order. Arm & Rage hasn’t been treated in a discriminatory manner, and “it is the Commission’s usual practice to initiate a hearing proceeding when a licensee has been convicted of a felony,” the order said. Arm & Rage's Joseph Armstrong was convicted of making a false statement on a 2008 tax form.

Former NAB President Gordon Smith, the ex-Republican senator from Oregon, was among eight self-described “political conservatives” signing their names to a report Thursday on the results of their investigation that they say debunks “every claim of fraud and miscount put forward” by former President Donald Trump and his advocates about the 2020 election. “Our conclusion is unequivocal: Joe Biden was the choice of a majority of the Electors, who themselves were the choice of the majority of voters in their states,” said the 72-page report, titled "Lost, Not Stolen: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election." Trump and his supporters have failed to present evidence of fraud “on the magnitude necessary to shift the result in any state, let alone the nation as a whole,” it said. “In fact, there was no fraud that changed the outcome in even a single precinct. It is wrong, and bad for our country, for people to propagate baseless claims that President Biden’s election was not legitimate.” The eight, including three retired appeals court judges, urged “our fellow conservatives to cease obsessing over the results of the 2020 election.” Trump’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The FCC Media Bureau extended to Aug. 1 the deadline for reply filings in the Standard/Tegna merger proceeding over the companies’ objections (see 2207120054), said an order in Wednesday’s Daily Digest. Replies were due July 18. The extension was requested by the NewsGuild and National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians sectors of the Communications Workers of America and other transaction opponents due to the short time frame for replies, the complex proceeding, and a medical issue involving the unions’ attorney. The broadcasters said none of those reasons merited an extension, and the opposition parties had already been granted an extension in the proceeding (see 2205130072). “Applicants’ interest in expediting this proceeding does not outweigh the public interest considerations supporting a two-week extension,” said the Media Bureau. “The public interest is served by having as complete a record as possible before final consideration of the applications.” The extension applies to all entities that have petitions and comments on file, and parties are allowed to raise new issues in the reply cycle, the order said.

Forty-nine state broadcast associations and the NAB targeted proposals to allow geotargeted radio. In a letter to all four FCC commissioners posted in docket 20-401 Wednesday, the state groups said they represent “nearly the entire universe of radio stations in every state and territory in the United States,” and repeated concerns the tech would create difficulties for emergency alerting and reduce ad rates for all radio stations: “We urge the Commission to heed the expertise of the radio industry, which has expressed deep concern over the pending proposal.” In a meeting Friday with Media Bureau Chief Holly Saurer, NAB was critical of the tests performed by geotargeting proponent GeoBroadcast Solutions, which developed booster technology to enable the targeted broadcasts. The tests were “woefully inadequate” and the data obtained was insufficient, NAB said. “ Given the extremely limited, unique nature of this sample, the data that GBS produced is simply not applicable to the vast majority of the zone regions created by the ZoneCasting boosters,” NAB said. “It is simply unreasonable for GBS to claim that its testing of ZoneCasting in a few tiny areas offers any worthwhile information about ZoneCasting’s impact on signal quality over the much larger area that a zone encompasses.” "The NAB got its affiliated State groups to sign a letter that perpetuates the same falsehoods that NAB keeps peddling to allow small broadcasters to compete against the largest group owners which dominate the NAB," said GBS spokesperson. "We are content with letting the market decide if geo-targeting is good for radio; NAB thinks it and the largest station owners should make that decision and dictate it to the rest of the industry."

The FCC Media Bureau rescinded its tentative selection of New Beginnings Movement to receive a construction permit for a new noncommercial educational (NCE) FM station in Indiana after determining that the population data submitted by New Beginnings was erroneous, said a letter in Tuesday’s Daily Digest. In its place, the Media Bureau chose the World Federation of Pastors and Ministers of the Full Gospel to receive the tentative selection, the letter said. World Federation also initially submitted incorrect population data but later amended it, the letter said.

The FCC shouldn’t grant an extension request for reply filings in the Standard/Tegna proceeding, said Standard General, Tegna and Cox Media Group in a joint filing posted Tuesday. The request, from the NewsGuild and National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians sectors of the Communications Workers of America, plus Common Cause and the United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry, is for a two-week extension. A 30-day extension was granted earlier in the proceeding. “The Movants’ serial extension requests make clear that they merely seek to delay this proceeding,” said the broadcasters. Granting the motion would bring the length of time between the application filing and the reply deadline to “nearly double the historical average,” said the broadcasters. The anti-consolidation groups seek the extension due to the complexity of the matter, the difficulty of accessing protected information, the short number of business days in the filing period, and “unavoidable medical treatments” required by Andrew Schwartzman, counsel for the two unions. Schwartzman is also senior counselor at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. None of those reasons is acceptable grounds for further delay, the broadcasters said. “The Motion itself is indicative that Petitioners are pooling resources in this proceeding,” said Tegna, Standard General, and CMG. “The requested extension is therefore not justified by a single lawyer’s need for an out-patient medical procedure.”

Urban One CEO Alfred Liggins initially supported geotargeted radio tech but began opposing it after becoming more informed, he told FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks in a call Tuesday, said an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 20-401. FCC authorization of the tech “would hurt minority broadcasters, including Radio One, and further enrich advertising companies” and GeoBroadcast Solutions, which plans to market the tech to broadcasters. “Urban One’s view is that minority businesses or other businesses advertising on Radio One stations do not face a barrier in reaching a broader audience,” the filing said.

Radio communications and TV "hobbyist" Roger Davis, a self-described “rural resident at the fringe” of a small TV market in eastern Ohio, sees the ATSC 3.0 transition “as an opportunity for broadcasters to serve rural populations in ways never before possible,” said his filing posted Thursday at the FCC in docket 16-142. His were the very first comments received in the FCC’s NPRM on all aspects of 3.0, five years into its voluntary deployment (see 2207060019). On the NPRM’s call for feedback on the market availability of 3.0 receivers, “my perception as a consumer is that while receivers are available, they are extremely limited in terms of choice at this time,” said Davis. He has been researching new TVs from several top manufacturers, “but I see that the ATSC 3.0 tuner capable models are restricted to higher priced units,” he said. Since NextGenTV stations “are generally simulcasting on lighthouse transmitters with no additional content or features, there is no compelling reason for me to switch to a new expensive television at this time,” he said. The 3.0-capable SiliconDust gateway device he bought in October 2020 “is fine for my hobbyist needs right now,” he said. But he worries that “much of the promise of ATSC 3.0 will be left behind as streaming options become more profitable and more prevalent,” he said. NextGenTV’s backers cite the current availability of many dozens of 3.0-capable TV models from LG, Samsung and Sony, at price points starting under $500, with approximately eight more models on the way from Hisense later this year. Comments in the NPRM are due Aug. 8, replies Sept. 6.

Apollo Global Management and the new company created by Standard/Tegna will have only “a borrower/lender relationship” and the $8.6 billion deal’s effects on retransmission consent arrangements are “relatively standard” and in line with FCC precedent, said Standard, Tegna and Apollo subsidiary Cox Media Group Thursday in a joint opposition to petitions to deny the transaction (see 2206230070), posted in docket 22-162. After-acquired clauses in retransmission consent contracts aren’t “a diabolical device” and the MVPDs that have such contracts with Tegna knew when they agreed to the clauses that Tegna was likely a candidate for acquisition, said the opposition filing. “Most, if not all, of the Applicants’ retransmission contracts currently in effect were negotiated in the shadow of the potential (or actual) sale of TEGNA,” the filing said. The FCC “should reject the MVPD Commenters’ entreaties for unwarranted conditions,” said the filing. Apollo Global Management and its subsidiaries won’t be the majority shareholder, will hold only nonvoting shares, and won’t own enough shares to be attributable under FCC rules, the filing said. If the companies’ goal “had been to push the envelope on how big an interest AGM could hold in TEGNA while remaining non-attributable,” FCC rules would have allowed Apollo to hold up to a 49.99% voting interest in the new company instead of the nonvoting shares it would have under the current deal, the filing said. Standard, Tegna and CMG also targeted the public interest groups opposing the transaction. “After years of advocating for providing access to capital to minority buyers, Petitioners now oppose both a minority buyer and his avenue for accessing capital,” said the filing, referring to Standard founder Soohyung Kim. Common Cause, the United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry and the Communications Workers of America's NewsGuild sector “failed to demonstrate any ‘concrete and particularized injury" from the deal and so don’t have standing to petition to deny it, the filing said. “The Commenters have presented no valid reason to impede or impose conditions on grant of the respective Applications,” the filing said. UCC, Common Cause and NewsGuild didn’t comment.