Opponents of Sinclair’s buy of Tribune protested the FCC commissioners’ meeting Thursday (see 1807120033) and were joined by a panel truck across the street bearing a giant video screen showing footage critical of Sinclair from the HBO show Last Week Tonight, Media Matters and sports website Deadspin. The protest was a joint effort from numerous opponents of the deal, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Common Cause, Free Press and Demand Progress, and was timed with the delivery of 670,000 petitions urging the FCC to reject the transaction, Free Press said. “With Sinclair’s long history of using mergers to abandon localism and diversity in this way, the Commission must deny Sinclair’s proposed acquisition here if it intends to uphold its own public interest goals of promoting localism and diversity in broadcasting,” CEO Craig Aaron said. Although groups opposing Sinclair/Tribune electronically submitted their petitions opposing the deal to the FCC, a small group of people against the takeover gathered outside commissioners' meeting. One we briefly spoke with had a sign saying #StopSinclair; another was carrying boxes of what appeared to be the physical petitions. The combining TV station owners continue countering attacks on their divestiture plans, local news broadcasts and scale, as they seek FCC OK (see 1807060033).

Univision is looking to sell digital assets Gizmodo Media Group (GMG) and The Onion, the broadcaster said Tuesday, hiring Morgan Stanley to assist. That would let Univision focus on “core assets,” it said. GMG is the former Gawker Media, and includes blogs such as Gizmodo, Jezebel and Deadspin. The Onion includes satirical new sites The Onion and ClickHole, as well as The A.V. Club and food blog The Takeout.

The FCC Media Bureau rejected Entravision objections to a license application from Matinee Media, said a letter in Monday’s Daily Digest. Entravision argued Matinee relied on temporary facilities to satisfy the requirements of a construction permit for a tower in Arizona, but Matinee said local zoning rules hindered its ability to immediately construct the planned facilities, and it plans to upgrade when local permits can be obtained. "Matinee’s construction pursuant to a short-term local zoning permission does not implicate our prohibition on temporary construction,” the bureau said. “The Commission has long declined to consider issues that are more appropriately resolved by a local court.”

The FCC should hold Sinclair buying Tribune in abeyance until after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rules on the UHF discount, said a joint letter in docket 17-179 from many opposed to the deal, including Cinemoi, the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians-CWA, Newsmax and National Hispanic Media Coalition. They supported a motion by Public Knowledge and Common Cause (see 1806280055). An FCC ruling approving the deal before the court rules “opens the door for the newly-formed company to impose long-lasting public interest harms,” the new letter said. Sinclair has said there is no legal reason for the agency to wait (see 1807060033).

Bidding credits for new entrants in FM auctions have been “a poor tool” for increasing participation by women and minorities and shouldn’t be used as evidence to support using the new entrant standard for an FCC incubator program, Free Press said in an ex parte filing in docket 17-289. Comparatively few women or minorities received construction permits through new entrant bidding credits, Free Press said. It also opposed the FCC’s proposed incubator program in general. “There is no reason to expect, even were the incubated licensee a woman or a person of color, that the incubation would lead to actual ownership,” Free Press said. The planned program would reduce the number of independent stations and increase station ownership by larger “conglomerates” by granting them waivers, Free Press said. “Incubators will do nothing to solve the challenge of independent access to capital.”

Calls to downgrade the FCC’s kidvid draft NPRM to a notice of inquiry are an attempt by Senate Democrats and advocacy groups to inject “unnecessary delay and distraction,” into the proceeding (see 1806290057), Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said in a commentary in the National Review Thursday. The same information gathering results can be achieved by an NPRM, he said. Criticisms that the kidvid proposals would reduce the availability of high quality content for kids aren’t based on evidence, O’Rielly said. Data provided to the FCC shows “only 0.6 percent of American households with children do not have access to either cable or Internet services -- and that number is even smaller for low-income, minority households,” O’Rielly said. The information coming in to the FCC indicates “broadcasters are heavily burdened by our rules, while most American households and children receive questionable benefits from them,” O’Rielly said. “I stand ready to work with anyone, within reason, from now until we vote on this rulemaking to reframe or ask additional questions that will build the most robust record possible.”

The freeze on minor change applications for low-power TV and translators is now lifted, said an FCC Media Bureau public notice Tuesday. The freeze was put in place ahead of the LPTV displacement window, which closed June 1. “Freezes on the filing of applications for displacement, applications for digital companion channels, and applications for new digital LPTV/translator stations and major changes remain,” the PN said. This opens up useful options for such stations, LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition Director Mike Gravino said in an emailed newsletter.

Comments on the FCC proposal to relax rules requiring stations post physical copies of broadcast licenses on their premises are due in docket 18-121 Aug. 1, replies Aug. 16, said a public notice posted Monday.

The FCC auction of 15-year-old mutually exclusive FM translator construction permits raised $574,771, the Media and Wireless bureaus said in a public notice in Monday's Daily Digest. Twenty bidders won 30 permits, the PN said. The permits in Auction 83 were those with interference conflicts that couldn’t be resolved after a 2003 filing window and have been stalled ever since (see 1801170031). Downpayments from the auction are due July 16, final payments July 30. Winning bidders must submit long-form applications by Aug. 8.

The FCC should delay consideration of Sinclair buying Tribune until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rules on the revived UHF discount, said a motion from Public Knowledge and Common Cause filed Thursday in agency docket 17-179. “Disassembling a transaction that has been consummated, or bringing it in compliance with a significantly lower ownership cap, would be very difficult or impossible.” Though the deal’s shot clock has been stopped while the FCC collects comments on Sinclair’s latest amended application, “only 13 days remain on the clock,” PK and Common Cause said. The final filing deadline for the Sinclair/Tribune proceeding is July 12. “If the Commission were to restart it at the close of the current pleading cycle, that could lead to action in this proceeding that would be uninformed by the Court’s decision,” said Common Cause and PK said. “Jumping the gun” and approving the deal before the court ruling could allow the combined company to obtain “long-lasting concessions from distributors” based on “a heft that it will have to shed shortly thereafter,” the motions said. Disassembly of the combined company could take “a long time to effectuate” and would be extremely difficult, the groups said. If the UHF discount were to go away after the companies were allowed to combine, they would have to divest stations to reduce their reach by 33 percent of U.S. households, the y said. “Abeyance is necessary to guard against the substantial ‘unscrambling of the eggs’ in the form of station divestitures by New Sinclair so significant that they would amount to an undoing of the merger.” Sinclair didn’t comment.