FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly will keynote the Hispanic Radio Conference in Fort Lauderdale March 28-29, said conference organizer Radio Ink in a news release Friday. O’Rielly will discuss possible ownership rule changes, net neutrality and other FCC issues, it said.

A Minneapolis man has pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud after defrauding investors in his startup TV network of more than $2.1 million, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota said in a news release Wednesday. Colin Chisholm, 67, used his The Caribbean TV Network to solicit funds from investors as interim financing while it was supposedly on the verge of securing up to $100 million to begin broadcasting. DOJ said Chisholm also lied about his personal and professional background, including claiming he had been a Turner Program Services vice president and participated in the launch of CNN.

The Copyright Royalty Board said Tuesday it received a notice from SoundExchange of its intent to audit SiriusXM's 2013-2015 royalty payment statements for its webcasting and digital satellite radio services. SoundExchange monitors royalty payments for Sirius and other services as part of its role in distributing royalties to copyright owners and performers under Copyright Act section 112 and 114 licenses, CRB said in a notice in the Federal Register. CRB said it also received a notice from SoundExchange about its intent to audit the 2013-2015 royalty payment statements submitted by broadcasters Cox Radio and Hubbard Broadcasting. The board separately sought comments on motions requesting partial distribution of 2010-2013 retransmission royalty payments from the cable and satellite royalty funds. MPAA, NAB, NPR, PBS and other claimants jointly agreed that the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, Broadcast Music Inc., and the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers should receive 3.5 percent of the 2010-2013 royalties from the satellite fund. The performing rights organizations should also receive 3.5 percent of royalties from the cable fund for 2010-2011, and 3.55 percent of royalties for 2012-2013, claimants said. NPR should receive 0.16 percent of the 2010-2013 royalties from the cable fund, claimants said. Comments on both redistribution motions are due Feb. 22, CRB said.

The FCC should reverse its stance on joint sales agreements and shared service agreements to “address the continuing paucity of minority and new entrant broadcast ownership,” said Howard Stirk Holdings (HSH) owner Armstrong Williams and Sinclair Television Group CEO Christopher Ripley in a meeting Thursday with FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai (before being named chairman), according to an ex parte filing in docket 14-50. Without joint sales agreements, Williams, who is African-American, wouldn't have been able to acquire his stations, the filing said. “HSH represents one of only two television station licensee enterprises owned by African American owned companies in the United States today.” The sharing agreements gave HSH access to capital that otherwise wouldn't have been available, and the company faces “ongoing revenue and cost challenges” without them, HSH said. “These are invaluable and effective tools which were taken away by the Commission in the current Quadrennial Review, but which should again be allowed in order to enhance diversity of ownership and content, and help save and enhance local programming and advanced the larger public interest with a focus on local service.”

The FCC should “immediately” end the incentive auction quiet period for broadcasters and take other steps to expedite the repacking, said Preston Padden, a consultant to station owners on the auction, in “informal comments” filed in docket 12-268 Monday. The FCC should end the quiet period because broadcasters are no longer bidding in the incentive auction, and it would “harm no party” for the commission to permit “100 percent voluntary temporary channel sharing,” Padden said. Such sharing would also “expedite the post-auction transition and could give broadcasters more time to construct their new facilities,” he said. The FCC should make data available that could help identify stations that are a “bottleneck” to the repacking, Padden said. Agency and industry officials said the commission could end the quiet period early (see 1701190041).

OTA Broadcasting and the FCC Media Bureau agreed to a $32,000 settlement over KAXT-CD San Francisco's failure to record several political advertising buys in its political file, said a consent decree. It's based on an investigation in November into KAXT's running several ads on behalf of a candidate for the California State Assembly without recording them in its public file. “To settle this matter, OTA Broadcasting has agreed to establish a program among all of the broadcast stations of which it is the licensee to ensure their future compliance with the political file disclosure obligations,” the consent decree said.

A public interest group's petition to expand the scope of the hearing on the license renewal of Entercom's KDND(FM) Sacramento to the broadcaster's other stations there is moot because the FCC Media Bureau approved the renewal of all five of the company's other stations in the market Wednesday, said an opposition filing posted Thursday from the Enforcement Bureau in docket 16-357. “To the extent, therefore, that Petitioners seek to add issues to this case directed to whether the pending applications for renewal of these Other Sacramento Stations should be granted, those issues are now moot.” The Media Action Center had asked the court to expand its consideration of whether Entercom properly trained and supervised the KDND employees in charge of the radio contest that led to a contestant's death in 2007 to other Entercom stations in the area. Media Action Center and the Media Bureau didn't immediately comment.

There's an immediate freeze on applications for digital companion channels for low-power television and TV translators, said an FCC Media Bureau public notice Thursday. The move is intended to “facilitate the special window for displaced LPTV and TV translator stations and to protect the opportunity for LPTV and TV translator stations displaced by the repacking of the television bands to obtain a new channel,” the PN said. Pending applications will be processed, and the freeze will be lifted after the displacement window for LPTV and translators is complete, the PN said. “The decision to impose this freeze is procedural in nature, and therefore is not subject to the notice and comment and effective date requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act." The freeze is effective immediately because a delay “would be impractical, unnecessary, and contrary to the public interest because it would undercut the purposes of the freeze,” the PN said.

CBS wants the FCC to reinstate the UHF discount “without waiting to launch any further proceeding on other ownership issues,” the broadcaster's Washington officials told aides to Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O'Rielly in a meeting last week, according to an ex parte filing in docket 13-236. Restoring the discount is expected to be an early target of the FCC under the new administration (see 1701110067). “Time is of the essence in providing broadcasters the ownership breathing room they so desperately need to compete with other video services,” CBS said. The FCC failed to offer “a shred of evidence that the public interest is in any way adversely affected by retaining the UHF discount, especially given the passage of time since the DTV transition, the point when UHF and VHF stations supposedly became technical equivalents,” CBS said. Numerous industry officials and the FCC said that after the DTV transition, UHF spectrum became more desirable than VHF, undercutting the original rationale for the discount. Industry officials said it's unlikely the new FCC would restore the discount before the ongoing reconsideration process of the item is complete. Replies are due Jan. 23.

The FCC Media Bureau granted Hemisphere Media Group's request for a declaratory ruling allowing Hemisphere to be foreign owned up to 49.99 percent, the bureau said in a declaratory ruling released Wednesday. “The public interest would be served by permitting foreign ownership in excess of the 25 percent benchmark.” Hemisphere asked the commission to give permission for Mexico-based Cinéma Aeropuerto and its foreign-owned parent companies to own up 49.99 percent. Aeropuerto already owned 7 percent, and one of Aeropuerto's parent companies is partially controlled by a trust committee that has one member in common with Hemisphere's board, the ruling said. Allowing foreign investment in the media company could lead to reciprocity for U.S broadcasters from Latin America, Hemisphere and the bureau said.