Broadcast stocks rose 19 percent since Donald Trump's White House win due to predictions of relaxed ownership rules and a faster growing economy under the new administration, Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker emailed investors Wednesday. The lifting or relaxing of the 39 percent of viewers TV ownership cap by the next FCC could trigger “significant” mergers and acquisitions, Ryvicker said, especially from large broadcasters such as Sinclair and Nexstar. Ryvicker said the stock jump also is being caused by “the potential for lower taxes and healthcare costs,” “the potential for the incentive auction to end sooner rather than later now that Chairman [Tom] Wheeler will be leaving by the end of January,” and “the fact that these broadcasters have been much more focused on shoring up their balance sheets in order to return capital to shareholders.” Wheeler hasn't said when he will leave (see 1611170054).

ATSC President Mark Richer remains “cautiously optimistic” the A/341 ATSC 3.0 video document “will go out to ballot” in December for elevation to the status of a proposed standard, “but it’s possible it could be delayed until January,” he emailed us Monday through a spokesman. Technology Group 3, the body within ATSC that’s supervising the framing of ATSC 3.0, made “a great deal of progress” on high dynamic range for the next-generation broadcast standard, Richer told us the week before Thanksgiving (see 1611170058). But the impasse inside TG3 over HDR for ATSC 3.0 has three times delayed the ballot on A/341, most recently when TG3 again extended the candidate standard period on the document for two months to Jan. 30. Under ATSC rules, extending A/341's candidate standard period again was a procedural move “necessary to ensure the document does not revert back to a Working Draft if for some reason the Proposed Standard ballot is not issued” before the Jan. 30 deadline, Richer said. He wouldn't comment whether TG3 has decided on an HDR solution for ATSC 3.0 among the six technology proposals vying for selection (see 1605200031).

The FCC argument that Free Access & Broadcast Telemedia's challenge of the incentive auction rules is relitigating issues settled by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's ruling in the previous Mako case (see 1611150021) is “a subtle but characteristic attempt to confuse the Court,” said Free Access in a reply brief filed Tuesday. Free Access isn't arguing that low-power TV stations should be protected in the auction but that the agency overstepped its authority in constructing the auction as it did, FAB said: “That is what confronts the Court in this landmark auction case: an administrative agency which decides its own unilateral policy, to the disdain of the enabling legislation and statutory limits on its powers, and that then tries to insulate its actions from judicial scrutiny with misdirection, makeweight justiciability objections and mutually inconsistent excuses.” Auction rules violate the Administrative Procedure Act and should be vacated or reversed, FAB said.

The FCC should further relax the main studio rule, said Florida Public Radio in a petition for rulemaking posted online Monday. FPR said the FCC “erroneously holds to two notions: 1) that a meaningful management presence is required for localism, and 2) that stations comply to a one-size-fits-all relating to what is a meaningful management presence.” The rule burdens noncommercial stations and smaller broadcasters with meeting the same staffing requirements as much larger broadcasters, it said. Licensees should be able to determine their staffing needs without an FCC imposed minimum, the filing said. “Time and technology have changed the rationale for the minimum staffing requirements of the main studio,” FPR said. “Public interaction with station ownership is readily available via telephone and internet, all hours, all days.”

CTA is in “the planning phase” for field-testing ATSC 3.0 reception at the experimental facilities owned by WJW Cleveland, Brian Markwalter, CTA's senior vice president-research and standards, emailed us Sunday. “That’s all we can say at this point,” Markwalter said. “CTA is not involved in any other field testing.” An LG, Zenith and GatesAir ex parte filing last week in FCC docket 16-142 (see 1611250030) said CTA and NAB were planning ATSC 3.0 field-testing in “Cleveland, and perhaps elsewhere as well.”

The government agencies that make up “Team Telecom” withdrew their request for deferral on action on a request from Univision and Grupo Televisa to allow Univision to be up to 49 percent foreign owned, said a letter from DOJ in FCC docket 16-217. DOJ, the Department of Homeland Security and DOD “have no objection to the application,” the letter said. In August, the agencies asked the FCC delay the application (see 1608110049).

Cleveland field tests done in June found that ATSC 3.0 delivers “significantly improved mobile reception capability” over the existing ATSC 1.0 DTV standard, LG, Zenith and GatesAir told the FCC in a Wednesday ex parte notice in docket 16-142. The test results are “pertinent” to the petition for rulemaking asking the FCC to authorize voluntary use of ATSC 3.0's physical layer (see 1604130065), and were submitted at the request of Martin Doczkat, chief of the Technical Analysis Branch in the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology, the filing said. That “highly reliable in-vehicle mobile reception was achieved” in the tests using tens of thousands of ATSC 3.0 “data points” bodes well for the “current and future” automotive industry, including autonomous cars, LG, Zenith and GatesAir told the commission. The tests originating from “experimental facilities” owned by WJW Cleveland generated “clean” reception to a mobile van more than 80 percent of the time in ATSC 3.0's “most rugged mode,” the companies said. Reception, as "anticipated," was “poor” when testing ATSC 3.0 in a moving vehicle in the less robust “stationary” mode, they said. They also said “because challenging routes were chosen, results should not be considered as statistical over the entire service area.” Their goal in the field tests was to “challenge the system,” they said.

Multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) with retransmission consent agreements with Media General and that have after-acquired station clauses in retransmission consent agreements with Nexstar will see the retrans fees they are paying those Media General stations go up 11 to 125 percent if those broadcasters merge. That's according to an ex parte filing Friday in docket 16-57 on a meeting between American Cable Association (ACA) Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Ross Lieberman and an aide to Chairman Tom Wheeler. ACA has pushed for conditions on Nexstar's buy of Media General (see 1611020041). And in the conversation, it said that to insulate consumers from higher cable rates directly resulting from the merger and those after-acquired station clauses, the FCC should condition approval on Nexstar's commitment not to exercise those clauses for the duration of its agreement with an MVPD. Nexstar counsel didn't comment.

NAB, Free Press, Common Cause, the United Church of Christ and Media Alliance filed as intervenors in 21st Century Fox's petition for review of FCC elimination of the UHF discount (see 1609070046), in filings in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. NAB said its members were adversely affected by the order. The public interest groups are concerned their constituencies will be adversely affected if the rule is modified. Fox's appeal argues the FCC ignored congressional intent and exceeded its statutory authority in eliminating the discount.

The FCC should either amend or eliminate its TV white space rules, NAB said in a meeting Wednesday with Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julius Knapp, according to an ex parte filing in docket 16-56. “The Commission’s current approach -- allowing TVWS operations in the face of the documented failure of its rules and ongoing noncompliance with those rules -- is incoherent.” The TVWS database is inaccurate, and guidance from OET requires that any device that doesn't comply with the FCC's push notification requirement must cease operating on Dec. 23, yet no industry standards exist for complying with the push requirement, NAB said. “To NAB’s knowledge, TVWS database administrators and TVWS device manufacturers have taken no steps to comply with this requirement,” the group said. “The Commission should either adopt and enforce effective rules that will allow TVWS devices to coexist with licensed operations, or it should eliminate or suspend TVWS operations.”