An FCC draft hearing designation order on Family Voice Communications was sent to commissioners last week, according to the agency's circulation list updated Friday, citing a Media Bureau item. The FCC didn't comment Monday.

The FCC's changes to media ownership rules and President Donald Trump's tweets against NBC News and in favor of Sinclair add up to the broadcaster “getting special treatment from the FCC” and “getting a special call-out from the executive branch,” Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said in a speech at the NAB Show Monday. She condemned the pending Sinclair/Tribune deal and Trump's popularization of the term “fake news” as government “being used as a tool to attack the conditions that make it possible for news to serve as a check on power.” It took too long for some on the FCC to respond to Trump's tweet calling for NBC News to have its license pulled, she said. “On these matters, history won’t be kind to silence,” Rosenworcel said. Commissioner Mike O'Rielly remains “open-minded” about what the FCC will do to kids' video rules, he said in a separate speech Monday. Allowing the FCC's kidvid requirements to be fulfilled by dedicated multicast channels is a solution the FCC is examining, O'Rielly said. The FCC should take up the issue of AM/FM subcaps in its 2018 quadrennial ownership review later this year, O'Rielly said. Arguments that eliminating the caps would lead to a decline in the AM band are “speculative,” O'Rielly said. The radio industry and FM band are facing many challenges, and O'Rielly said he is “hesitant to embrace ideas that would bring about even more uncertainty into this space.” A draft proposal on introducing a new C4 class of FM station was circulated to the eighth floor (see 1802140060). O'Rielly praised the recent efforts to reform what some consider to be outdated FCC rules and said he has a list of 40 ideas for further FCC overhauls that he plans to take to Chairman Ajit Pai. License renewal holds based on enforcement actions are one place the FCC might be able to improve its rules, O'Rielly said.

The Puerto Rico Broadcasters Association thinks waiving broadcaster minor change rules for FM translators there and on the U.S. Virgin Islands "will save money that currently does not exist and is needed to get back on air" after hurricanes, PRBA Vice President Eduardo Rivero told us Friday through his lawyer. The previous day, the group asked the FCC Media Bureau Audio Division to allow more time for AM outlets on the islands seeking regulatory reprieve to resolve conflicts with others also seeking FM translators (see Ref:1804050047]). "There is precedent by the FCC of waiving translator rules for Puerto Rico to advance the establishment of FM translators locally," Rivero said now. Waiving the three-up or -down rule, which limits moves to no further than a third adjacent channel, "will provide additional outlets for the emergency alert system in the local communities served by the FM translators for future events," he added.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau warned low-power FM station WEXI-LP Hallandale, Florida, about operating from a different antenna with a different height than the one for which it's authorized and operating at higher transmitter output power than licensed. A notice of violation In Thursday's Daily Digest said licensee The Truth Will Set You Free had 20 days to respond with explanation of the violations and corrective steps that had been taken, plus a timeline for completion of any further corrective steps. WEXI outside counsel didn't comment Friday.

An owner of radio stations in the Bryan-College Station area of Texas proposed the FCC let smaller AM stations give up those licenses and transfer primary status to a new class of FM station: their translator. Bryan Broadcasting said that could remedy any interference between those Class D's and higher-power Class A's while letting the smaller ones operate at higher nighttime power, acknowledging it's a "difficult problem" for the regulator to "resolve." Bryan Vice President Ben Downs said in a filing posted Friday that he told eighth-floor and Media Bureau officials including Commissioner Mike O'Rielly in several meetings that such "migration" would be allowed if the translator had been operating for a year or two without facing interference complaints. Downs wrote in docket 13-249 that the plan "would help reduce congestion in the AM band" as he "believes a substantial number of the over 850 Class D AM stations would be willing to take this trade." Class D's run "either daytime, limited time, or unlimited time with a nighttime power less than 0.250 kW," while D's can operate at much higher power 24 hours a day "on a clear channel," the bureau says. Downs said such AM to FM switches would give Class A's money from selling their transmitter sites, as many "AM sites have become more valuable as real estate than as part of an AM station." NAB and bureau representatives declined to comment.

Total U.S. radio station advertising revenue fell 0.2 percent last year to $13.87 billion as online sales gained 9.7 percent and terrestrial fell 2 percent, reported BIA/Kelsey Thursday. "Although local radio stations are still important players in their local markets, we do not expect the over-the-air advertising revenue of U.S. radio stations to grow much this year or in the near future," said Chief Economist Mark Fratrik. "There is an unprecedented number of new audio entertainment and information sources and new advertising platforms competing with radio, including many that are unregulated." On-air annual revenue growth for radio stations may stay below 1 percent "for some time," Fratrik emailed us. "For the next five years we do not see faster growth." Mergers and acquisitions last year were the most since 2011, with 752 stations sold for $3.32 billion, the research firm said. Fratrik said broadcasters can further expand their HD Radio efforts, given carmakers are including the receivers in new autos, and noted increasing use of FM translators for rebroadcasting AM signals (see 1804050047).

LG Electronics is the first TV maker to join the ATSC 3.0 “model market” project in Phoenix (see 1711140053), said the company Thursday. It will supply the first 3.0 receivers for the project, which is being spearheaded by Pearl TV and supported by 10 TV stations in the market to show how the standard “can be deployed while maintaining existing digital TV service for viewers,” it said. LG receivers "will be tested by local broadcasters and consumer focus groups" as the model market project "ramps up this summer," it said. Though just before CES Pearl announced a “collaborative project” for the Phoenix model market with another TV maker, Sony Electronics, that was for the development of a 3.0 “channel navigation tool,” not TV receivers (see 1801050035).

The Puerto Rico Broadcasters Association asked FCC staff to give broadcasters in that territory and the U.S. Virgin Islands more time if they seek waivers regarding resolving mutually exclusive auction 100 cross-service FM translator applications. Some PRBA members now have such MX, or overlapping, proposals for FM translators and may "run the risk" of not getting such an outlet in that last filing window in the commission's AM revitalization, the group said Thursday in docket 17-329. It cited the "devastating effects" of hurricanes Irma and Maria and said that not granting individual waivers "would severely hinder" those broadcasters from restoring service to the islands. The group wants stations to be able to move conflicted translators to any available channel. Some affected station executives and their lawyers say the commission should do more to help with restoration (see 1803160051). The Media Bureau, whose Audio Division the filing was directed toward, declined to comment.

The Society of Professional Journalists Tuesday condemned comments against print journalism made by Sinclair Executive Chairman David Smith. “The print media is so left wing as to be meaningless dribble which accounts for why the industry is and will fade away,” Smith said in emails to New York magazine. “Just no credibility,” Smith said. “It appears that you are attempting to discredit any and all journalism except that produced by your television stations,” said SPJ national President Rebecca Baker and Executive Director Alison Bethel McKenzie in SPJ's letter to Smith. “Much of the content read on the air at Sinclair stations likely originated in the print media,” the letter said. “At a time when journalists are constantly being ridiculed and attacked by those in positions of power, we would expect someone in your position, at a media company as large as yours, to realize the difficult job ALL journalists have,” the letter said.

President Donald Trump intends to nominate a longtime PBS station general manager and a former Obama-administration appointee to the CPB board, for the remainder of six-year terms ending Jan. 31, 2022, the White House announced Tuesday. Rubydee Calvert, longtime GM of Wyoming PBS, has been on the boards of PBS and America’s Public Television Stations. Laura Ross is a lawyer and former chief of staff to the New York attorney general's office. She has been active in national and New York City area Democratic politics, including a past term as Democratic Senate Campaign Committee national finance chairwoman. The Senate previously confirmed her to be an alternate U.S. representative to the U.N.'s 2009-2010 General Assembly. The CPB board manages the “property, affairs and business” of CPB and has input into congressional funding requests, said the corporation's guidelines. Calvert and Ross are subject to the Senate Commerce Committee confirmation process. The committee didn't comment Wednesday.