The FCC should exempt noncommercial educational TV stations from ATSC 3.0 simulcasting requirements, said PBS in a meeting Thursday with Commissioner Brendan Carr, recounted a filing posted Tuesday in docket 16-142. “Public television stations will ensure the continuity of viewer access throughout the transition regardless of whether the Commission imposes a regulatory mandate.” Letting stations make their own choices about how to continue providing service during the transition would be preferable, PBS said. “The simulcast mandate unnecessarily constrains the ability of public television stations to best serve local community needs, and the mandate would in fact preclude many public stations from bringing the educational benefits of the new standard.” The public TV network said the FCC should acknowledge the amount of the repacking shortfall and issue a follow-up allocation of reimbursement money from the $1.75 billion repacking reimbursement fund.

The FCC Media Bureau is partially lifting the freeze on full-power community of license petitions, said a public notice Friday. Such petitions that don’t require a change in service area will now be accepted, eliminating the need for freeze waiver requests with such petitions, the PN said. The freeze has been in place since 2004 and the DTV transition, and is being lifted now that the incentive auction is over, the PN said. “Normal processing of such petitions will have no impact on the post-incentive auction transition schedule.” The freeze on petitions requiring a change in service area remains, along with freezes on allotment of DTV channels for new stations and changes to licensed stations’ channels.

The FTC gave the nod to Tegna’s proposed $325 million buy of a radio station, TV station and a digital subchannel from Midwest Television (see 1712180075), according to an early termination notice. Tegna had said it expects the deal to be completed Q1 and didn’t comment Friday.

The FCC should adjust its order eliminating the main studio rule to give more time to licensees with expiring construction permits to take advantage of the rule change, said De La Hunt Broadcasting in a petition for partial reconsideration posted Thursday. The costs required by the main studio rule made constructing a broadcast facility untenable for De La Hunt despite its construction permit, the petition said. The elimination of the rule now makes construction viable, but De La Hunt’s construction permit will expire before it can build the new facility, the petition said. The situation is exacerbated by the main studio rule having taken effect Monday (see 1801040052) in the midst of winter, which makes construction even more difficult, the filing said. To allow broadcasters like De La Hunt to take advantage of the rule change, the FCC should allow broadcasters with construction permits for new facilities with less than six months left in the construction period to be given another six months to build, the petition said. “Adoption of this across-the-board extension will affect relatively few outstanding permits, but will undeniably be in the public interest,” De La Hunt said.

The FCC Media Bureau is pausing the 180-day “shot clock” for the Sinclair/Tribune deal so Sinclair can amend its application and file divestiture applications and staff can review them, the bureau said in a letter to Sinclair Wednesday. The pause, which the letter describes as being “as of January 4, 2018,” is a reaction to Sinclair’s informing the Media Bureau in a Jan. 4 meeting (see 1801100032) that it was evaluating divestitures and Top-4 showings and that DOJ review may “impact” divestiture choices, the letter said. “It is appropriate to stop the informal 180-day clock until after the referenced amendments and divestiture applications have been filed and staff has had an opportunity to fully review them,” the letter said. The shot clock on the FCC’s website was paused at day 167 Thursday. Sinclair didn’t comment.

Twenty TV stations in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands can begin early transitioning to the new channels they were assigned in the post-incentive auction repacking, said the FCC Incentive Auction Task Force and Media Bureau in a public notice issued Thursday. The stations, all affected by storm damage from 2017’s powerful storms, requested (see 1712010052) the early transition to avoid having to rebuild twice -- once to broadcast on their current channel, and then again to transmit on their new channel assignment by their repacking phase deadline. Now the stations --12 of which are currently dark -- will transition before phase one, allowing them to take advantage of repacking reimbursement funds in their rebuilding effort. “The bottom line is that residents of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands will be able to access emergency communications and other valuable broadcast content sooner as a result of this decision,” said Chairman Ajit Pai in a statement. Under the waiver, the stations are permitted to begin testing on their post-auction channels July 1, and must be off their pre-auction channels by Aug. 1. The timing is intended to keep their repacking efforts from draining resources needed for phase one of the repacking, the PN said. Phase one stations can begin using their new channel in September, most of the stations that requested the waiver were in phase three, and couldn’t have moved to their new channel until 2019.

The Trump FCC is dismantling polices encouraging competition and localism that “made American broadcasting great,” said former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a blog post Thursday. “The beneficiaries will be the big corporate broadcasters. The losers will be American viewers and democratic values.” Recent FCC policy changes to facilitate joint sales agreements and allow for more common ownership will hurt broadcaster local news operations, and the Sinclair/Tribune merger will do the same, Wheeler said. “When Sinclair controls access to 72 percent of all American households after the merger, the situation will become even worse for localism,” Wheeler said. The FCC “loosened its rules in order to facilitate” the Sinclair deal, and Sinclair “weaseled around the policies that would have previously barred this consolidation,” Wheeler said. The Internet created a void in local news reporting that broadcasters could have stepped into, but have so far ignored, he said. Broadcast TV “is failing to meet its local responsibilities precisely when new technology is also failing local needs,” Wheeler said. The FCC and Sinclair didn't comment.

The FCC Media Bureau’s Audio Division proposed an $8,000 penalty for a station that operated multiple times from locations where it wasn’t licensed, said a notice of apparent liability released Wednesday. The NAL is included in an order saying the Media Bureau will grant KSAG(FM), Pearsall, Texas, renewal if there are no other issues, and denying an informal objection from Alpha Media. KSAG licensee Wendolynn Tellez repeatedly relocated the station without approval from the FCC, and didn’t build new facilities at a location she did receive FCC permission for, the NAL said. Alpha Media’s objection involved a clause in Tellez’s permit that barred Alpha Media from doing program tests at its own new facilities until KSAG started testing at its new location, but the bureau said Wednesday that Alpha doesn’t have to wait for KSAG to begin construction. The bureau also issued an NAL for $7,000 to Chisholm Trail Communications for failing to timely file a license renewal application for its KOME-FM, Meridian, Texas, and for operating after its license expired. Chisholm told the bureau it didn’t realize its license had expired, the NAL said.

FCC Media Bureau Chief Michelle Carey requested a meeting with Sinclair about the company’s divestitures and plans to comply with the national ownership cap under the Tribune deal, said an ex parte filing Tuesday in docket 17-179. At the meeting Thursday, the parties discussed Sinclair’s divestiture plans and communications with DOJ, the filing said. Sinclair held a similar meeting with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s Chief of Staff Matthew Berry (see 1801090034). Sinclair is “evaluating divestitures, as well as Top-4 showings to be made in amendments to the applications consistent with the recent changes to the ownership rules” but DOJ review “may impact certain divestiture choices,” the filing said.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai doesn’t plan to create new processes to review broadcast deals that involve financial and sharing agreements, he said in a Dec. 21 response to a September letter from House Commerce Democrats posted Wednesday. In the initial letter, Committee ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., Communications Subcommittee ranking member Mike Doyle, D-Pa., and Commerce Oversight Subcommittee ranking member Diana DeGette, D-Colo., asked Pai numerous questions about the Sinclair/Tribune deal (see 1709290063). Along with declining to change the way the bureau handles deals involving sharing, Pai repeated he wasn’t seeking to favor a particular company, and answered questions about the timing of FCC actions related to the merger and contact with Sinclair officials. Pai said One Media Executive Vice President-Strategic and Legal Affairs Jerald Fritz had used Pai's personal email address to send a letter about ATSC 3.0 chip development in India, but that email was then forwarded to Pai's work email address in order to include it in the record. Pai also said the FCC had been in communication with Sinclair about a pending enforcement matter -- the agency released a notice of apparent liability against Sinclair on Dec. 21 (see 1712210042), the same day as Pai’s response. Pai also left open the possibility the Media Bureau could request further information from Sinclair on the deal, and said he first learned of the proposed merger through news reports. Pai responded only briefly to numerous other letters from lawmakers on the Sinclair/Tribune deal, according to responses posted Wednesday. Pai sent the same letter to each lawmaker who wrote in about the deal, assuring all of them that their comments would go into the record but declining to discuss the matter. “While I am unable to discuss the merits of this particular proceeding, I can assure you that the Commission is conducting an open and transparent process as required by FCC rules and regulations,” Pai said in letters responding to questions about the proposed merger from Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. “Our decision will be based on a careful analysis of the robust record that has been developed,” Pai said.