IHeart wants to know what sort of FM listening data would be useful in the FCC proceeding on FM translator interference (see 1805100057), said a filing posted Monday in docket 18-119 on a meeting last week with Media Bureau Audio Division Chief Albert Shuldiner. The radio broadcaster said it's working "on a presentation of the locations of listening to FM radio stations based on Nielsen audience data." IHeart raised the possibility of extending the July 6 comments deadline “given the effort required to obtain and present such data.”

Liberty Media withdrew its proposal to buy a portion of iHeartMedia “after reviewing results which were below expectations and negatively impacted our initial estimates of value,” Liberty said Friday. The offer was reportedly $1.8 billion for 40 percent of the company. “We remain open to future discussions as iHeart proceeds with its reorganization,” the release said. Liberty didn't comment further and iHeart didn’t comment.

The FCC shouldn’t move to relax equal employment opportunity reporting rules until it begins collecting employment data, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights wrote Chairman Ajit Pai, posted in docket 17-105 Thursday. The requirement for mid-term EEO reports shouldn’t be loosened (see 1805010075) until the FCC “remedies its near 20-year failure to collect industry-wide employment statistics as required by law,” the group said. The agency suspended collection in 2001, and never resumed despite concluding such data collection was legal in 2004, the conference said. “Collecting employment data is central to the FCC’s obligation to ensure nondiscriminatory employment practices and to track the success of its policies." The media modernization effort is “a rush to deregulate without adequately considering how existing regulations serve the public interest and equity,” the letter said. The agency should implement “an automated, searchable, and uniform electronic database” and “adopt a transparent mechanism to trigger mid-term license review” to replace EEO reports the agency proposes to eliminate, it said.

C4 FM booster SSR Communications wants the FCC to grant waivers to allow some stations to upgrade while the notice of inquiry on the proposed new C4 class is pending (see 1806050061), said a filing in docket 18-84 on meetings last week between CEO Matthew Wesolowski, aides to all commissioners, and Media Bureau Audio Division Chief Albert Shuldiner. Broadcasters “have been waiting for such relief” since Wesolowski initially petitioned about the new class in 2013, the broadcaster said. Going through an NOI and then NPRM could mean a year or more before an order could come forth, the company said. “A waiver-based strategy could allow Zone II Class A FM stations fuller coverage in a matter of weeks.” Stations that receive such waivers could provide evidence that the new class wouldn’t cause negative impacts to other broadcasters, the filing said. It recounted Shuldiner saying such waiver requests likely would be held until the comment record ended, and eighth-floor aides encouraged the filing of comments supporting the waiver proposal.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected PMCM’s appeal of FCC rulings preventing its WJLP Middletown Township, New Jersey, from being broadcast on virtual channel 3, said a judgment issued Wednesday and posted the next day by the agency (see 1805170072). “The Court has afforded the issues full consideration and has determined that they do not warrant a published opinion,” the judgment said. “PMCM argues that the FCC misinterpreted the relevant PSIP [program and system information protocol] Standard and arbitrarily assigned virtual channel 33 to WJLP,” the ruling said. “We reject both of these arguments.” FCC interpretation of the rules “controls,” the D.C. Circuit said in an unsigned, four-page ruling: Harms caused by operating on channel 33 are “easily fixable,” it said.

The BBC is encouraging viewers to share comments about the broadcaster’s livestreaming trials of 29 World Cup matches in 4K with hybrid log-gamma HDR over its iPlayer internet catchup service (see 1805300003), said Andy Quested, head of BBC production standards, at the SES Ultra HD Conference Tuesday in London. The BBC is posting continuous information updates on its blog. It’s stressing that the broadcasts are only a trial, to find out what can and can’t be done with livestreaming in 4K HDR. For the World Cup, “we are using a mix of HD and UHD cameras, with the feed from wireless HD cameras and HD studio cameras upscaled to UHD,” said Quested. Many of the viewer comments concerned latency, with the sound and picture drifting significantly out of sync, he said. In some instances, iPlayer viewers hear cheers from their neighbors’ live-broadcast HD feeds, well ahead of seeing the action livestreamed on their TVs in UHD, he said. Quested recalled how early streaming experiments left the sound and picture several minutes out of sync, because the signals needed to travel around the world by different routes. Things are much better now, he said, but there is still room for improvement in IP latency. Internet speed is all-important, Quested said. “People forget about what the kids are doing with games consoles upstairs, and what other people are doing in flats down the street,” he said. “And an Ethernet cable connection will generally be more reliable than Wi-Fi. In many respects, where we are now with UHD and HDR gets us back to where we were with the old Arriflex Super 16 cameras.”

The FCC Media Bureau mailed the second batch of its equal employment opportunity audit letters for 2018 on June 19, said a public notice in Tuesday's Daily Digest. “Each year, approximately five percent of all radio and television stations are selected for EEO audits,” the letter said. A list of the stations affected is online.

More than 30 radio licensees have written the FCC to support the proposed C4 FM class since docket 18-184 opened June 5, though the Federal Register hasn't published the notice of inquiry. “I fully support the FM Class C4/73.215 petition for rulemaking filed by MMTC and SSR Communications,” said Simmons Broadcasting CEO Bob Simmons. “The ability to increase power on our two Class A stations to 12kW and more effectively compete would be a huge benefit to our position in the markets we serve.” Most of the letters appear similar, and text apparently inadvertently included in one indicates the letters are part of an organized campaign. “[T]hen add something about your situation, such as your track record of community service, awards, emergency coverage, et cetera” said a letter from Wilbur Martin, manager of WABO Waynesboro, Mississippi. SSR Communications owner Matthew Wesolowski originally proposed the C4 FM class in a petition to the FCC, and told us he asked supporters to write in to demonstrate interest in the potential new class.

The FCC should create an incubator program that includes both radio and TV broadcasters, NAB said in a meeting Thursday with staff from the Media Bureau and the Office of General Counsel, according to an ex parte filing in docket 17-289.“Several commenters have endorsed inclusion of television stations in the program, and we are not aware of any commenter who has urged the Commission to limit the incubator program to radio,” NAB said. The incubator program also should include measures “that will foster public trust in the program” such as requiring information about an incubated entity’s finances and possible connections to the incubatee, NAB said.

Media measurement company Data Plus Math signed a “preferred partner agreement” with Verance to deploy Verance’s Aspect audio watermark technology as an “analytics and attribution measurement” tool for stations adopting ATSC 3.0, they said Wednesday. This “will introduce a Next Gen TV compliant multi-touch, multi-TV approach to attribution and help local programmers better analyze and monetize their inventory,” they said.