The FCC draft incubator order should be changed to prevent incubation in small markets from leading to ownership waivers in large markets, said members of the agency's Diversity and Digital Empowerment in a meeting with Media Bureau staff Friday, said a filing posted Monday in docket 17-289. The committee members included Multicultural Media, Internet and Telecom Council Senior Adviser David Honig, National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters President James Winston and Diane Sutter, president of ShootingStar Broadcasting. Bayou Broadcasting CEO DuJuan McCoy was also present, and the filing said the committee members spoke on the behalf of former FCC Commissioner Henry Rivera. With Rivera, the members made up the group that authored the ACDDE's position on incubators. The draft order runs counter to several of the diversity committee’s unanimous recommendations about how an incubator program should operate (see 1807120053). A provision in the draft that allows waivers granted to incentivize participation to be transferred to “comparable markets” would allow “incubation in a modest sized, and often not very diverse, 45-voices market like Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Pennsylvania, (Metro Rank 77), to facilitate the securing of a waiver for a 6th FM station in New York City,” the members said. This “would have the unintended effect of deeply diminishing the likelihood that incubation would be used in the top 50 markets,” they said. The committee members said they are “at peace” with the draft order using the new entrant standard for determining eligibility, but it should be modified to acknowledge that the “Overcoming Disadvantages Preference” standard could be used if the new entrant method doesn’t work out. They asked for similar textual acknowledgement of other concepts in the draft, such as the eventual inclusion of TV incubators, and efforts to reach “mission-based entities” such as historically black colleges and universities. The members want the agency to push Congress to adopt policies that would allow tax relief to be an alternative incentive to incubating companies.

The U.S. subsidiary of a prominent Japanese radio-antenna manufacturer serving the big five U.S. automakers wants the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to exclude Chinese imports of automotive antenna components from proposed 25 percent Trade Act Section 301 tariffs, it commented, posted Friday in docket USTR-2018-0018. The list of proposed duties released June 15 (see 1806150030) was the second tranche of Trump administration tariffs, on which comments are due Monday and a hearing is Tuesday. This tariff schedule subheading is "a specialized product with limited customers and import volume,” said Robert Shield, Yokowo Manufacturing of America president. Few tech sector commenters had filed in the docket through Friday. Sage Chandler, CTA vice president-international trade, will testify for members. We couldn’t verify Friday whether Yokowo is one.

A longtime North Miami pirate radio operator and the couple who owned the shack he broadcast from were fined $144,344 by the full FCC, said a forfeiture order in Friday’s Daily Digest. “Today’s item will set clear Commission precedent going forward that landlords who materially assist with unlawful pirate operations can be held jointly and severally liable,” said Commissioner Mike O’Rielly in a statement that said if anything, he wishes the penalty were greater. Fabrice Polynice, also known as DJ Paz, and his landlords Harold and Veronise Sido argued against the fine but the FCC found the three -- with a history of unlicensed operation citations -- liable for the full amount allowed by statute. Without the statutory cap, the fine would have been $710,000, the order said. The statutory maximum for unlicensed operations “pales in comparison to penalties for other violations of Commission rules and is simply not enough to serve as a sufficient deterrent against operating pirate radio stations,” said O’Rielly. He endorsed the House Pirate Act (see 1807190055), which would raise the number to $2 million and toughen other piracy rules. Though Polynice argued that the agency needed to send him a citation before issuing a notice of apparent liability, O’Rielly and the agency disagreed. NALs “can be counterproductive,” O’Rielly said. “Warning enterprising pirates that you are on to them can send them underground, or onto another frequency, increasing the time it takes to get the pirate off the air.” Polynice was said to argue the FCC was selectively targeting him, and that the pirate radio enforcement was intended to hurt Haitian immigrants. Polynice “sees this Commission’s actions as a way to keep the Haitian community in a weak position and without the necessary information they need to succeed,” the order said. “Nothing in the Commission’s rules prevents someone who wants to serve an underserved community from providing programming legally.” Polynice and the Sidos couldn't be reached for comment.

Beasley Broadcast will buy WXTU(FM) Philadelphia from Entercom in a deal connected with Entercom’s proposed buy of WBEB(FM) Philadelphia from Jerry Lee Radio for $57.5 million, said Entercom and Beasley Thursday. Entercom said it divested WXTU to let it buy WBEB.

U.S. smart speaker ownership has passed 43 million people, NPR-Edison Research said, with “first adopters” who have owned one for more than a year using it for advanced things including smart home control. Three-quarters of the 909 adult-respondents owned their speakers for less than a year. In first-adopter households, the devices are the primary way those households consume audio, said Tom Webster, Edison senior vice president. Some 29 percent of early mainstream owners said their smart speaker replaced time spent with TV, and 28 percent listened to a podcast within the week, said the study done May 21-June 1 and emailed to us Wednesday. Nineteen percent of newer owners listen to audio most on a speaker connected to a smartphone, 17 percent of new and early adopters to audio most on an AM/FM radio, and around 70 percent of both use it for news. For mornings, traffic, weather and news are leading uses, and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., top activities are ordering an item, listening to AM/FM and adding an item to a shopping list.

The FCC Media Bureau will complete changes to its licensing and management system to accept applications for ATSC 3.0 licenses, but not until early 2019, said a public notice Wednesday. Applications for ATSC 3.0 test markets and product development can be filed under the experimental license rules in the meantime, said the notice. An FCC notice earlier this week in the Federal Register said the commission got Office of Management and Budget approval for three years on information collection requirements for Form 2100 for the move to 3.0 (see 1807160014).

The FCC received Office of Management and Budget OK for three years on information collection requirements for Form 2100, what it calls a next-generation TV license application involving ATSC 3.0. The commission's changes are taking effect Tuesday, says that day's Federal Register. The Media Bureau will change the form and relevant schedules for TV stations "to implement the Next Gen TV licensing process and collect the required information," the FCC says: "The form will be revised to establish the streamlined 'one-step' licensing process for Next Gen TV applicants," with staff using the license application to determine compliance with rules and whether the public interest would be served by approval of such a license. The first 3.0 stations went on air with experimental licenses due to the lack of license application for next-gen TV, said Pearl TV Managing Director Anne Schelle at the NAB Show (see 1804080002). In November, commissioners approved 3-2 the 3.0 rules. Another two FCC information collections also are effective Tuesday (see 1807160052).

The FCC Audio Division rejected all but one of 328 petitions for reconsideration filed by Prometheus Radio Project, Common Frequency and Center for International Media Action seeking to overturn rejected appeals against FM translator petitions the groups say didn’t ensure filing opportunities for low-power FM stations, said a letter released Friday. The 328 petitions stemmed from the Media Bureau’s rejection of 994 objections filed by the groups earlier this year (see 1806080038). The 327 petitions were rejected over a failure to show standing, but one Prometheus petition did demonstrate “with particularity” how the petitioner’s interests would be affected, the letter said. That petition involves an LPFM station in Philadelphia that will be short spaced by a pending FM translator in Camden, New Jersey, the letter said. The short spacing would make it hard for the LPFM station to relocate, and that could harm the listener who signed the petition, the letter said. The merits of the sole remaining petition will be addressed “at a later date” the letter said.

A 50 percent national ownership cap without a UHF discount would be “an unprecedented constriction of the national ownership cap,” said economist and former Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth in a report commissioned by Ion, Univision and Trinity and filed Friday. The broadcasters have pressed the FCC to grandfather their UHF discount-dependent groups in any changes to the national cap. Friday’s filing and Furchtgott-Roth’s report target a BIA/Kelsey study filed by broadcasters such as Hearst and Gray in support of a 50 percent cap and eliminating the UHF discount (see 1806110058). “The conclusions of the BIA Report related to economies of scale would more strongly support a cap higher than 50%, or no cap at all,” Furchtgott-Roth’s report said. Despite disagreeing with its conclusions, he said the BIA's evidence does support grandfathering companies such as Ion. The broadcast sponsors of that earlier report, including Hearst President Jordan Wertlieb and Scripps Media President Brian Lawlor, met with Commissioner Mike O’Rielly Tuesday to praise the 50 percent national cap, said a filing in docket 17-318. “Such a choice would permit reasonable growth without causing localism to be irreparably harmed.”

The FCC’s notice of inquiry on a proposed new C4 class of full-power FM station was in Thursday's Federal Register Thursday (see 1806050061). Comments on the C4 class are due Aug.13, replies Sept. 10.