Nexstar will buy KRBK Osage Beach, Missouri, and WHDF Florence, Alabama, for a total of $19.45 million, Nexstar said in a news release Thursday. KRBK is being sold by owner KRBK and WHDF by owner Huntsville TV. Under local marketing agreements, “Nexstar began operating WHDF-TV on July 15, 2018 and KRBK-TV on August 1, 2018,” the release said. The deals are expected to close in Q4.

Public media groups endorsed the FCC plan to end rules requiring physical posting of broadcast licenses and other information at stations. “Public Broadcasting is concerned with the outdated Commission rules that continue to impose obligations to post licenses on the premises,” commented America’s Public Television Stations, NPR and PBS, posted in docket 18-121 Wednesday.

Changes creating the FCC online reporting system for emergency alerts take effect Sept. 4, says a Federal Register notice set for Thursday. The reporting system replaces paper filing and is intended to make state EAS plans more uniform and more accessible to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (see 1804100043).

Commissioners dismissed a petition for reconsideration by the former holder of a construction permit for a deleted Texas low-power TV station, said an order on reconsideration in Wednesday’s Daily Digest. The petition was the latest in a series of appeals by permittee Gwendolyn May of FCC and Media Bureau rulings that the agency acted properly in 1990 in rescinding an erroneously granted application to assign the station to the Faith Pleases God Church Corp. The application was invalid because May let the station’s construction permit expire, the order said. Over many years of appeals, May “has failed to provide any evidence of material error or set forth any legal or equitable reason that the Commission should grant this Petition,” the order said. Any subsequent pleadings from May on the matter are to be summarily dismissed. Commissioners also dismissed a recon petition by the Daytona Beach Broadcasting Association appealing an order dismissing a previous association application for review of the agency's rejection of an LPFM construction permit, said an order in Wednesday's Daily Digest. The petition was dismissed for being filed five days late, the order said. "The Commission generally lacks the authority to extend or waive the statutory 30-day filing period for petitions for reconsideration."

The European Broadcasting Union will lead a team that includes Dolby, Fraunhofer and 17 other “industry partners” to do the world’s first distribution of Ultra HD signals with HDR and high frame rates of the European Athletics Championships in Berlin, said EBU Tuesday. The goal of the trials is to transmit 4K signals with hybrid log-gamma HDR at 100-Hz frame rates, it said. “Current state-of-the-art live broadcasts don’t exceed a field or frame rate of 50Hz in Europe, and HD interlaced (1080i25) is still the dominant broadcast emission format even though commercial encoders and TV sets manage up to 2160p50 resolution.” The championships open Thursday in Berlin for a 10-day run.

Physically posting licenses and authorization information is “no longer the most reliable or efficient means of making information available to the public,” broadcaster HC2 commented in docket 18-121 in support of an FCC proposal to do away with broadcaster license posting requirements. “Times have changed, and the Commission’s rules should change too,” HC2 said. “Chairman [Ajit] Pai recognized that maintaining the current bevy of posting and record keeping requirements serves no public interest,” HC2 said. “Displaying licensing documents and other authorizations for broadcast stations is outdated because these locations are often inaccessible and redundant with information found online.”

An Arkansas law firm filed a class-action antitrust lawsuit in Maryland federal court against Sinclair and Tribune accusing them of colluding to fix advertising prices, connecting the accusation to reports DOJ is investigating the companies over advertising sales amid the FCC designating Sinclair/Tribune for hearing. “This antitrust class action arises from a conspiracy among Defendants and their coconspirators to fix prices for commercials to be aired on broadcast television stations,” said the complaint (in Pacer) in U.S. District Court in Maryland by the Law Offices of Peter Miller, a Sinclair advertiser. The broadcasters conspired to artificially inflate ad prices in response to insufficiently increasing revenue, the complaint said. Sinclair and Tribune had “numerous opportunities to conspire” as members of associations like NAB and were negotiating a deal to combine, the complaint said. An NAB spokesman said it's "laughable" to suggest that the association had any involvement in price-fixing. The companies colluded “by having members of their advertising sales teams share competitively sensitive information and data with each other, which they used to raise advertising prices to levels higher than they otherwise would have been,” the complaint said. The lawsuit is on behalf of all direct purchasers of advertising from them in the U.S. The plaintiff, Sinclair, Tribune and DOJ didn’t comment.

Hearst will buy CW affiliate WPXT Portland, Maine, from Ironwood Communications subject to regulatory approval, Hearst said Monday. Hearst TV owns the market’s ABC affiliate, WMTW Portland Spring. Hearst also owns stations in Boston, Manchester, New Hampshire, and two stations in Vermont.

Entercom announced the end of its advertising reseller agreement with United States Traffic Network in a release Monday, responding to a $5 million lawsuit filed by USTN against the radio broadcaster Friday. Entercom entered into negotiations to buy USTN and “at the last minute, walked away from the sale,” and “informed USTN that it was going to develop a direct competitive business based upon the information gleaned during the due diligence/discovery process,” said USTN’s complaint in 269th District court in Harris County, Texas. “We are relieved to no longer be mired by the difficult USTN situation that was inherited as part of the CBS Radio merger,” Entercom CEO David Field said. “The lawsuit is entirely baseless, frivolous and frankly insulting.” Entercom ”worked tirelessly and constructively “to help USTN work through financial issues, the radio broadcaster said. “Entercom is owed substantial amounts of money by USTN, and the Company intends to defend itself vigorously and assert all of its rights,” Entercom said. USTN accused the company of intentionally inducing it to miss a scheduled debt payment “under the pretenses that this payment would be unnecessary due to the planned closing of the purchase transaction.”

The CBS board is selecting outside counsel “to conduct an independent investigation,” it said. The board said Friday it would investigate sexual abuse allegations against CEO Les Moonves (see 1807270032). The 2018 annual stockholder meeting, originally set for Aug. 10, is postponed. The stock closed down another 5.1 percent Monday at $51.28.