Online notice alone of broadcast applications isn’t enough to allow for full public participation, said the Georgetown Law Institute for Public Representation, Common Cause and National Hispanic Media Coalition in a meeting Wednesday with Media Bureau staff, according to a filing posted in docket 17-264 Monday. “Members of the public generally are not aware of their right to comment on and challenge broadcast license applications“ and so are unlikely to check the FCC or broadcasters' websites without some other notice, the filing said. “On-air announcement is necessary to inform members of the public of their right to comment.” Current public notices also don’t “effectively engage” the public or provide enough information, the groups said. The FCC should issue additional notice when a proceeding involves waivers, they said. Broadcasters could combine on-air and online notices without being unduly burdened, by using tactics such as announcing on-air a web address containing additional information, the so-called public interest groups said.

The FCC hasn’t complied with Freedom of Information Act requests involving Sinclair and its proposed buy of Tribune, said a complaint to U.S. District Court in Washington Monday. Freelance journalist Askold Krushelnycky sought records about the 2016 consent decree between Sinclair and the FCC over joint retransmission consent negotiations, and nonpublic communications between Sinclair and the FCC. The Media Bureau released few records and hasn’t responded to an application for review, the complaint said. After a bureau official told him delays responding to his FOIA request were caused by there being “approximately thirty” outstanding FOIA requests regarding Sinclair, Krushelnycky filed a second request for copies of all FOIA requests that reference Sinclair/Tribune, and the documents produced by the FCC in response to those requests, the complaint said. The agency said it was extending the deadline to respond because of the volume of that request, but didn’t meet its Feb. 2 deadline and hasn’t sent any records, the complaint said. The FCC hasn’t adequately searched for the relevant documents, failed to follow its own rules and is “intentionally concealing what should be public information,” the complaint said. Krushelnycky wants the court to order the agency to make the records available and cover his court costs. The commission and Sinclair didn’t comment.

The appeal of the FCC’s media ownership reconsideration order by Free Press and other public interest groups “says enough is enough to an agency that keeps failing to do its homework and fulfill its statutory mandate,” said Free Press Senior Counsel Jessica Gonzalez in a release (see 1803080068). “The Pai FCC is a gift to the broadcast industry, as the commission bends over backwards to give favors to massive media conglomerates like Sinclair," Gonzalez said. “Runaway consolidation gouges newsrooms and hurts communities -- especially marginalized communities that more often depend on broadcast TV for local news.” The appeal by Free Press, Common Cause and other groups is expected to be joined to the ongoing court challenge of the rules in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a public interest attorney told us. Sinclair and the FCC didn’t comment.

A group of radio industry officials met with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's Chief of Staff Matthew Berry, Media Bureau staff, and aides to all the other commissioners Tuesday to discuss the proposed C4 FM class (see 1802140060), said filings in RM-11727. The C4 proposal would allow many Class A station owners to upgrade their stations, said station owner Matthew Wesolowski, of SSR Communications, who originated the C4 idea. Though a filing by a group of station owners said both Wesolowski and REC Networks founder Michelle Bradley presented studies showing that the impact of C4 on low-power FM stations would be "largely insignificant," a filing by Bradley for the same meeting said LPFM operators are concerned their stations may experience increased interference from C4 stations. "Engineering remedies existed in each of the handful of cases where a possible conflict could arise," the station owner filing said. Bradley also said special protections or preferential treatment for one type of translator would be a violation of the Local Community Radio Act, according to her ex parte filing.

More public interest groups have challenged the FCC’s media ownership reconsideration order, according to a petition for review filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Thursday. The additional groups are Free Press, the Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ, the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians-Communications Workers of America and Common Cause, the petition said. They will likely join the ongoing case in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a public interest attorney told us.

Sinclair restructured its divestiture plans and will now unload a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania-area station and seek top-four duopolies in two markets -- Indianapolis and Greensboro, North Carolina -- instead of three, according to an amendment to its FCC application. Sinclair had been seeking to own two top-four stations in the Harrisburg market (see 1802210062). The changes come after a conference call with Media Bureau staff in which Sinclair said it would make changes to its application (see 1803060037). The latest amendment also includes changes to Sinclair’s plans if it doesn’t receive FCC permission for the two proposed duopolies. Under the previous plan, unspecified stations in those markets would have gone into the divestiture trust if the FCC rejected the top-four proposals. If the FCC rejects the plan under the March amendment, Sinclair instead wants the agency to allow its takeover of Tribune to close, but grant it temporary waivers to continue to operate the duopolies until it can sell some of the stations. The waivers are appropriate since this will be the first request for permission to own top-four duopolies under the new rules in the media ownership reconsideration order, Sinclair said in the amendment. “Temporary waivers would be appropriate given the uncertainty in the outcome and potential for resulting delay.” The March amendment also changes the way Sinclair characterizes the divestiture trust: In a footnote, Sinclair anticipates it will have already signed purchase agreements with third parties to sell all the stations being divested before they go into the trust. Opponents of Sinclair/Tribune have been critical of a lack of specificity in Sinclair’s divestiture plans (see 1802280047). Sinclair didn’t comment. Sinclair’s amended filing "remains just another smoke and mirrors plan that leaves many more questions than answers," said Sinclair/Tribune deal opponent the Coalition to Save Local Media in a news release. Sinclair's divestiture list is a "placeholder" and the filings still show Sinclair will continue to manage some divested stations through sharing agreements, the group said. "The Department of Justice has rejected these types of sham divestitures in recent broadcast-related consent decrees." The FCC shouldn't start the deal's shot clock based on the amendment, and the plan should be put out for public comment, the coalition said.

The FCC should do away with or relax rules requiring broadcasters to provide public notice of applications, NAB said Thursday in a meeting with Media Bureau staff, recounted a filing Tuesday in docket 17-264. The notices don’t generate public comments, so they're “unnecessary burdens,“ NAB said. If the FCC won’t eliminate notice requirements altogether, the agency should get rid of rules mandating that those notices be placed in newspapers and allow broadcasters to make “brief on-air announcements” that refer the audience to websites with additional information. The FCC’s notice rules also vary widely in length and frequency requirements, and should be standardized, NAB said.

Sinclair and Tribune will resubmit or amend parts of their application to transfer ownership of stations after a Feb. 28 call with Media Bureau staff, said an FCC filing posted Tuesday in docket 17-179. The call was at the request of FCC staff, the filing said. “Participants discussed FCC policies and procedures applicable to applications filed in connection with the proceeding,” Sinclair said. “The parties advised the FCC staff that they would resubmit or amend certain of those applications accordingly.”

PMCM’s reading of rules would cause “widespread disruption” and let TV stations demand cable carriage on their RF channel numbers, displacing stations using those slots, the FCC said in a brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. It's the latest salvo (see 1709280034) in PMCM’s battle to have its WJLP Middletown Township, New Jersey, assigned to virtual channel 3 after being relocated. Two longtime stations in the area use that channel. “Neither the FCC’s rules nor the must-carry statute compel such counterintuitive and counterproductive results,” the agency said Friday. It disagreed with the company's definition of terms in the rules such as channel and market, and argued that not assigning PMCM the channel it seeks is within “broad discretion” granted to the regulator.

A foreign broadcaster uploading copyrighted content onto its website and making it available for streaming to U.S. users is in violation of the Copyright Act, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said in a docket 17-7051 opinion Friday. The ruling affirmed a U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruling that Polish government-owned broadcaster Telewizja Polska was violating Spanski Enterprise's copyrights and awarded Spanski $3.06 million in statutory damages. The appellate court rejected Polska arguments it was the end users who selected which content to view who ultimately were responsible for any infringement. It also rejected Polska arguments that its failure to geo-blocking the content for which Spanski had exclusive North American rights happened in Poland and therefore claims of Copyright Act liability would be an impermissible extraterritorial application of the law. Polska outside counsel said the decision was being reviewed. Deciding were Circuit judges David Tatel, Thomas Griffith and Robert Wilkins, with Tatel penning the decision. Amicus briefs in favor of Spanski had come from the U.S. and from Disney, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Bros., RIAA, American Association of Independent Music and National Music Publishers' Association.