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.

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 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.

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.

The FCC Media Bureau approved Gray Television’s request to change KSCW-DT Wichita, Kansas, from Channel 12 to 28, said an order Wednesday.

The FCC should promote increased use of IP-based emergency alerts rather than overhauling the legacy emergency alert system to increase accessibility, said NAB, NPR and alerting equipment manufacturer Digital Alert Systems in reply comments posted in docket 15-94 Wednesday. Common alerting protocol messages have “superior accessibility capabilities,” NAB said. While pushing CAP, the FCC should preserve the legacy EAS system “as a redundant, more resilient pathway when internet connectivity is disrupted.” Digital Alert Systems (DAS) said it doesn’t agree with some commenters that adding some additional text or embedded ancillary data to alerts would substantially increase the length of time a message plays. “We feel that such representations may overstate any potential issues,” said DAS. “One must consider the actual length or time an ancillary data frame might require, which may be a scant few seconds in practice, against the real-world spoken length of EAS messages.” Media that have a limited ability to display visual information -- such as many car radios -- may be able to increase alerting accessibility using symbology, DAS said. NPR and DAS said the FCC should let broadcasters adopt new technology to increase alert accessibility on a voluntary basis. The FCC should convene a multistakeholder initiative to “consider voluntary avenues for improving emergency alerting and informing in the United States,” said the Advanced Television Systems Committee and the Advanced Warning and Response Network Alliance in joint comments. As alerts exist now, deaf or hard-of-hearing individuals “often have to cobble information together through several different sources to learn vital information” in emergencies, said the National Disability Rights Network.

The FCC Media Bureau's denial of a construction permit extension for an unbuilt California AM station was “a material error” and ignored evidence of mitigating circumstances from wildfires and the COVID-19 pandemic (see 2201060048), said Schwab Multimedia in an appellate brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Friday. The FCC said Schwab’s multiple requests for delays didn’t provide sufficient evidence connecting the construction delays for KWIF(AM) Culver City to the fires and the COVID-19 pandemic, but Schwab said Friday the Media Bureau misconstrued its filings. Schwab submitted documentation on pandemic restrictions in Los Angeles County making it hard to hire construction crews to work on the station, but the agency rejected that evidence because broadcasters weren’t included in the restrictions. The bureau “failed to acknowledge that many construction crews were ‘simply unavailable or unwilling to travel’” because “of the high number of COVID-19 cases at the time,” Schwab said. Schwab also argued the bureau applied its tolling policies inconsistently when Schwab changed site locations, and that the rejection went against the FCC’s AM revitalization efforts. The FCC “impermissibly reinterpreted its tolling rules in the Order, applying an arbitrary and capricious standard,” the filing said.

The Auburn Network’s broadcast licenses won’t be revoked over owner Michael Hubbard’s felony convictions, ruled FCC Administrative Law Judge Jane Halprin in an order Monday in docket 21-20 (see 2108310069). “No persuasive evidence has been introduced” to show that Hubbard’s conviction for “public corruption felonies logically leads to the conclusion that he is likely to behave dishonestly” with the FCC, said Halprin. The proceeding was the first done via written record, rather than as a live, oral hearing, a method the agency authorized in 2020 to streamline the hearing process. A hearing designation order for Auburn was issued in February 2021 based on Hubbard’s convictions for multiple felonies for using his position in the Alabama state legislature to advance the interests of companies that paid Auburn as a consultant. The FCC Enforcement Bureau argued Hubbard sought to conceal his intermingling of legislative and business affairs by contracting his consulting services through Auburn, but Halprin said the EB failed to offer persuasive evidence that Hubbard was trying to hide. He asked state ethics officials about the matter, and Auburn has a record of compliance with FCC rules, she said. “The misdeeds of a public servant may indeed be relevant in gauging that person’s ability to serve the public interest as an FCC licensee, but in this particular case and under these particular circumstances, the evidence presented does not satisfy the burden of proof,” Halprin said. The Enforcement Bureau argued Auburn took advantage of the paper hearing process by submitting declarations about Hubbard’s character with its final filings in the case, preventing the EB from reviewing or challenging them. “We may still have some work to do in developing procedures for the consideration of evidentiary arguments in written hearing,” Halprin said.

Rep. Darren Soto, D-Fla, pressed the FCC in a letter Friday to investigate irregularities in a dismissed, proposed transaction involving a Miami AM station he accused in 2021 of spreading Spanish-language disinformation. WSUA(AM) Miami withdrew its proposal to be sold to ATV Holdings in April amid allegations the station and ATV Holdings were both already controlled by a foreign company and misrepresented their ownership to the FCC. “Because of this dismissal, allegations of irregularities and possible violations with this application were not investigated by the Commission,” wrote Soto. “However, the answers to some of these inquiries are of public importance.” In an April 2021 letter, Soto and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus wrote the FCC about the proposed sale over concerns about disinformation affecting the 2020 presidential election results in Florida. “We can no longer allow conservative media to lead Spanish-language misinformation campaigns on Florida's Latino communities,” he tweeted then. “It's time for the FCC to intervene.” In Friday’s letter, Soto asked the agency about “a series of irregularities regarding ownership” of WSUA and “possible ownership of a FCC license by a foreign national corporation without necessary exemption." In 2021, Commissioner Brendan Carr blasted the caucus over the letter for “treating the FCC as merely an arm” of the Democratic National Committee and seeking to censor political speech. He didn’t comment Friday.