Amending the Table of Allotments to allow WEDW Bridgeport to move closer to New York City will deprive parts of Connecticut of service, violate the FCC’s freeze on digital channel substitutions, and “effectively reallocate the station to New York,” said PMCM in comments posted in docket 18-20 Tuesday. PMCM is the licensee of WJLP Middletown Township, New Jersey, which serves “much of the same area that WEDW now proposes to serve,” and would be “economically affected” by the relocation, PMCM said. WEDW didn’t comment.

The FCC should eliminate the national ownership cap and “remove an unnecessary barrier to the ability of local television stations to compete in the evolving media marketplace,” said Nexstar CEO Perry Sook in a meeting with Chairman Ajit Pai Thursday, according to an ex parte filing Monday in docket 17-318. Sook was accompanied by former FCC Chairman Dick Wiley, now chairman emeritus at Wiley Rein. The national ownership cap doesn't "support diversity, localism, or competition," said a presentation attached to the filing.

Gray will sell TV stations in eight markets to Lockwood Broadcasting, E.W. Scripps and Tegna to complete the divestiture process connected with its proposed buy of Raycom, Gray said in a news release Monday. Gray earlier this month announced divestiture deal for a ninth station to Marquee Broadcasting (see 1808160063). The total sale price for all nine divestitures is $235.5 million, “which exceeds Gray’s internal projections for divestiture proceeds,” the release said. “By divesting television stations in each of the nine overlap markets, Gray ensures that the Gray/Raycom combination will not reduce competition in those local markets,” the release said. Gray said the sales will result in the stations’ total separation from Gray. Gray “will not have any joint sales, joint retransmission, shared services, or local marketing arrangements with any divested station. Additionally, Gray will not hold an option to repurchase any divested station, nor will Gray finance or guarantee any purchaser’s indebtedness,” the release said. The hearing designation order issued by the FCC against the Sinclair/Tribune deal cited many ofsuch sharing arrangements and options as evidence Sinclair would still retain control over its divested stations (see 1808090042). The proposed divestitures will close when the Gray/Raycom transaction does, which Gray predicts will be Q4.

A provision in the FCC’s incubator program order that allows broadcasters to receive ownership waivers in markets comparable to the one in which they incubate a new broadcast owner “threatens to destroy” the entire program, said members of the Advisory Committee on Diversity and Digital Empowerment, in a call with Matthew Berry, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s chief of staff. “The notion that a market with fewer than 350,000 people and 63 stations is in any sense ‘comparable’ to a market of over 19,000,000 people with 153 stations is new to communications law,” said Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Senior Adviser David Honig and National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters President James Winston in the filing. Honig and Winston said they called Berry on behalf of fellow committee members DuJuan McCoy, CEO of Bayou City Broadcasting, and former FCC Commissioner Henry Rivera, now with Wiley Rein. No notice was provided during the proceeding of the FCC’s definition of a comparable market, and the definition “was not a logical outgrowth of any earlier proceeding,” the filing said. “The incubation proposal would suddenly have been converted into little more than an engine of large market consolidation."

The FCC should eliminate rules requiring broadcasters to provide public notice of license applications, NAB said last week in docket 17-264. Such notice is “superfluous,” NAB said: If the agency doesn’t eliminate notice requirements, it should get rid of rules requiring that notice be published in newspapers, and instead allow broadcasters to make on-air announcements. Stations that don’t have the capability to create and broadcast on-air notices still shouldn’t be required to buy newspaper ads, the group said. “Such stations could be permitted to purchase an online equivalent of a newspaper notice, such as an advertisement on a website associated with a local newspaper, TV or radio station.” The FCC already has gathered comments on an NPRM that included proposals to relax notice rules but hasn't moved further (see 1801020044).

Gray Television will sell CBS affiliate WSWG Valdosta, Georgia, to Marquee Broadcasting, the seller announced Thursday. It's one of the divestitures Gray in connection with Gray's proposed buy of Raycom (see 1806250057). Marquee plans to combine WSWG with another Georgia station it's seeking to buy, WSST-TV Cordele, to expand service to southwestern Georgia, the release said. The deal will close when Gray’s transaction with Raycom is complete, predicted to be Q4, the release said.

Dickey Broadcasting Co. reached an $8,000 settlement over unauthorized changes of control in the transfer of the company’s Georgia AM stations to an inheritance trust without notifying the FCC, said an order and consent decree in Thursday’s Daily Digest. The “failure to accurately report” DBC’s ownership structure after the transfers in 2000, 2010 and 2013 was “inadvertent” and due to controlling shareholder Lewis Dickey Sr.’s “complicated estate planning,” the consent decree said. Though DBC filed applications in 2018 revealing the transfers and seeking permission after the fact, the Media Bureau declined to make the applications retroactive.

DOJ withdrew its request the FCC defer acting on Hemisphere Media’s petition to allow it to be owned by a foreign entity, “with the concurrence” of the Department of Homeland Security and DOD, said a letter posted in commission docket 18-134 Thursday. The Media Bureau in 2017 approved Hemisphere's request to be up to 49.9 percent foreign owned by a Mexican-controlled trust, and the current request seeks permission for another company based in Mexico, Cinema Aeropuerto, to own the same percentage (see 1805040037).

Public broadcasting programmer Public Radio International and media/podcast company PRX are combining and receiving a $10 million investment from WGBH Boston, PRX said Wednesday.

E.W. Scripps will sell its remaining 19 radio stations in four markets to SummitMedia for $47 million, the seller said Wednesday. This is the fourth and final deal in Scripps’ plan to sell its complete stable of 34 radio stations. “This is a significant milestone toward executing our strategy to divest of non-core assets,” Scripps said. The deals will total $83.5 million when finished, it said. The SummitMedia deal includes stations in Wichita, Kansas; Springfield, Missouri; Omaha, Nebraska; and Knoxville, Tennessee and is expected to close in Q4.