Gray Television will buy low-power Telemundo affiliate WKTB-CD Norcross Georgia from Capital Media, said a news release Monday. Along with the station, Gray is buying video production agency Surge Digital Media, the release said. “Upon closing this transaction, Gray will own Telemundo affiliates in 12 markets, including the largest affiliate in the Eastern US, as well as 7 markets in Texas,” it said. The deal is expected to close in the next few months, pending regulatory approval, the release said. Terms weren't disclosed. Gray already owns full-power CBS affiliate WGCL-TV Atlanta and WPCH-TV Atlanta.

Beasley Media supports a 2019 petition from NAB, NPR and Xperi asking the FCC to allow permanent HD asymmetric sideband operation for digital FM, said a letter to the FCC posted in docket RM-11851 Monday. Currently, stations operating in this way have to request annual experimental authorizations, the letter said. Beasley’s station WCSX(FM) Birmingham, Michigan, has been operating under that system since 2015 and hasn’t drawn interference complaints from adjacent FM stations, Beasley said. “Replacing the current burdensome and costly asymmetric sideband experimental application and extension process with a simple notification would benefit both broadcasters and the Commission,” the letter said.

Additional equal employment opportunity reporting requirements aren’t the best way to improve employment diversity in broadcasting, said NAB in a meeting Thursday with FCC Media Bureau Chief Holly Saurer and bureau staff, said an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 98-204 (see 2110010066). The agency could “more effectively” improve diversity “through initiatives designed to help boost broadcasting as an attractive career path for minority and women job seekers,” the filing said. If the FCC reinstates EEO data collection, it should do so on a confidential basis, to avoid “subjecting stations to unlawful and counterproductive pressure,” NAB said. It should also exclude companies that are already obligated to report similar information to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the filing said.

Comments are due March 7, replies March 21, on an E.W. Scripps request to change the channel of a Billings, Montana, station from 10 to 20, said Friday’s Federal Register. The FR names the station as WTVQ-TV, but an FCC spokesperson confirmed the intended station is KTVQ. The agency told us it will work to get the entry corrected. The docket is 22-39.

Rule changes allowing the use of computer models to verify FM directional antenna patterns should include requirements that those doing the modeling be qualified, and that full documentation of the underlying data be available to the FCC and interested parties on request, said NAB in replies posted Friday in docket 21-422. “With appropriate guardrails as described herein, NAB believes that computational simulation of FM directional antennas is already mature and can produce comparable accuracy to physical measurements.”

The FCC Media Bureau proposed a $7,000 forfeiture for Magnolia State Broadcasting’s WMOX(AM) Meridian, Mississippi, over a late-filed renewal application and operating without a license without a grant of special temporary authority, said a notice of apparent liability posted Thursday. WMOX’s application was due Feb.3, 2020, but the station didn’t file one and its license expired June 1. On June 5, the station requested reinstatement and the bureau treated that as a petition for reconsideration and reinstated the license. The station continued operating after the license expiration and didn’t file an STA request, the NAL said. Magnolia didn’t comment.

A House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday on the American Music Fairness Act (see 2109200050) will include testimony that broadcasters are falsely “crying poor” on compensating performers for radio play, and that musician groups failed to come to the negotiating table with radio stations, said the two sides in dueling previews of the testimony on AMFA. HR-4130 would charge radio stations a performance royalty fee for the artists, in the form of yearly payments based on station size and profitability. “NAB put forward serious proposal after serious proposal” on compensating artists but “received no serious counteroffer,” said President Curtis LeGeyt in an interview Tuesday. LeGeyt will testify, along with singer Gloria Estefan, American Federation of Musicians (AFM) International Executive Officer Dave Pomeroy and others. LeGeyt said it's “disappointing” to broadcasters to be relitigating the issue before legislators. In a virtual news briefing Tuesday, musicFIRST Coalition Chairman Joe Crowley slammed NAB for not producing a broadcaster to address legislators, and condemned iHeart Media CEO Bob Pittman for not testifying. MusicFIRST is made up of several music industry entities, including AFM, SoundExchange and RIAA. Pittman is “unwilling to flip open his laptop” and “defend the indefensible,” Crowley said. IHeart declined to comment. Large radio groups make billions of dollars from the “unpaid labor” of artists, and the AMFA would charge lower rates to 63% of radio stations -- only the largest radio groups would face significant fees, Crowley said. “We are not an industry rolling in revenue,” LeGeyt said. Even the largest groups maintain community stations that require resources, he said. In addition to iHeart, he said the bill would affect middle-size radio groups such as Beasley and Hubbard. The AMFA would draw a bright line for stations with revenue of over $1.5 million that would cause fees to shoot up. A “performance tax” is “not a workable business model,” LeGeyt said. “NAB loves to call any attempt to ensure fair pay for artists a performance tax,” Crowley said. “This legislation doesn’t direct money to the government, it directs money to performers.” Former Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate and the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters wrote the committee this week in support of NAB.

The FCC should expeditiously act on the 2018 and 2022 quadrennial reviews of broadcast ownership said several public interest groups in a virtual meeting Wednesday with staff from the Media Bureau and the Office of Economics and Analytics, according to an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 18-349. Free Press, Common Cause and the United Church of Christ Justice Ministry said the agency should begin analyzing ownership data to understand the current state of media diversity and to affirmatively declare in a 2018 QR order that the Communications Act's public interest standard includes race and gender ownership diversity. The agency should also clamp down on broadcast ownership loopholes such as shared service agreements, the filing said. “There is no reasonable justification” to conclude the 2018 QR “without closing these operating agreement loopholes, which have abetted the broadcast industry’s reliance on shell companies,” the filing said. The Future of Music Coalition and musicFIRST said the agency shouldn’t loosen local radio ownership caps, and the agency should “conduct studies analyzing the extent to which past consolidation events have led to a reduction of viewpoints." Other groups on the call included the National Hispanic Media Coalition and the Communications Workers of America.

FCC email notices sent to stations that didn’t timely file biennial ownership reports are likely a last warning before fines, blogged Wilkinson Barker's David Oxenford Friday. “The FCC warned back in November that ‘enforcement action’ would follow if stations did not file.” Sent last week, the notices gave stations until March 1. The filings were due Dec. 1.

The full FCC ordered landowners to dismantle a 114-meter broadcast tower in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, after being unable to determine the specific owner, said an order Friday. The structure has been unlit since 2005, and was declared “a menace to aviation” by FAA, the order said. The tower was constructed in 1990 on an easement, and changed hands among multiple now-defunct broadcasters, including SeArk Radio and MRS Ventures, the order said. One of the landowners, Lora Gaither, told the FCC she's interested in having the tower dismantled but her efforts “have been stymied by her inability to obtain local counsel,” who, "are wary of representing her because of their unfamiliarity with the Commission’s regulatory requirements.” Because of the aviation hazard, the FCC can’t wait for the landowners to dissolve the easement and take possession, the order said. “The Land Owners presently possess the Structure,” the order said. “Any person having a remaining interest in the Structure is subject to this Order.” The landowners got 90 days to dismantle it. We couldn't reach Gaither.