The window for all commercial broadcast licensees to file biennial ownership reports opened Thursday and ends Dec. 2, the FCC Media Bureau reminded broadcasters. The 2015 Form 323 must have information on ownership interests as of Oct. 1, a bureau public notice said Tuesday. "All commercial AM, FM, TV, [low-power] TV, and Class A stations, as well as all entities with attributable interests in such stations, are required" to use the bureau's Consolidated Database System to submit the form, the PN said.

Broadcast station merger and acquisition activity accelerated in Q3, topping $3 billion -- more than twice the combined amount of the previous three quarters, SNL Kagan said Thursday. Radio M&A amounted to $422.1 million, with TV seeing $2.61 billion in deals, it said. Year to date as of the end of Q3, radio deals were $663.4 million, with TV deals at $2.75 billion, SNL Kagan said. While there were no deals valued at more than $100 million between October 2014 and August 2015, there were five such transactions in Q3, it said. The biggest deal announcement of the quarter was that of Media General's $3.1 billion takeover of Meredith -- which is now complicated by Nexstar's competing $4.1 billion bid (see [Ref:1509280041]), which isn't included in SNL Kagan's numbers. The researcher said the largest radio M&A announcement of the quarter was Alpha Media's $264 million purchase of Digity.

Having just elevated ATSC 3.0's physical layer to a candidate standard (see 1509290029), ATSC is “on target to move essentially the entire suite of ATSC 3.0 standards” to candidate-standard status by year-end, ATSC President Mark Richer said in a "President's Memo" in the October issue of The Standard, ATSC’s monthly newsletter, published Thursday. In emphasizing “the need for speed” on ATSC 3.0, “we’re not just going fast for the sake of going fast,” Richer said. Broadcasters, CE makers and others in the U.S., South Korea and other countries “are clamoring for the completion of ATSC 3.0,” he said. Elevating the ATSC 3.0 suite to candidate-standard status will give stakeholders “confidence for short- and mid-term business planning and investments, while providing a critical platform for evaluating the technology under real-world conditions,” in preparation for moving the suite to proposed-standard status in 2016, Richer said. The candidate standard phase “provides an opportunity for the industry to implement some or all of the documented aspects of the standard,” he said. “That will help to assure that standard works as advertised, that professional and consumer electronics products will be interoperable and that there’s a good understanding of implementation issues.” Sinclair’s affiliated ONE Media is launching experimental broadcasts in Baltimore and Washington that will include the first single frequency network implementations using base elements of the new transmission candidate standard, the newsletter said in a separate column. “The full-power, multi-site test platform” in both markets “will deploy a full range of next-generation services that include fixed, portable and mobile capabilities,” it said. “The test broadcasts are being designed to provide real-time assessments of quality of service” using the new IP-based physical layer, it said. The testing is being done under the memorandum of understanding signed mid-June by Samsung, Sinclair and Pearl TV (see 1506170046), it said.

If DTV receivers and converters aren't properly tuning WJLP Middletown, New Jersey, on virtual-channel 33, the products may be violating FCC rules, said CBS in a letter posted Wednesday in docket 14-150. It responded to WJLP owner PMCM's emergency request last month for Media Bureau relief to grant the broadcaster's virtual channel 3.10 request. "The FCC should take appropriate enforcement action against" makers of equipment that can't tune WJLP, said CBS. "The need for FCC action is particularly important given that the impact of such equipment performance problems is likely to be exacerbated once broadcast television stations are operating on fewer RF channels following the upcoming incentive spectrum auction." PMCM's request said it tested TVs, including smart sets, and digital converters from companies including Hisense, JVC, Panasonic, Phillips and Sony and some of the devices didn't work properly. Representatives for those companies didn't comment Thursday, nor did CEA. When viewers selected Channel 33, PMCM said, the receivers in most sets instead tuned to WCBS-TV New York, which broadcasts on that channel. In August and September, more than 40 sets were tested, some in viewer homes, and most couldn't get WJLP over the air, said broadcast lawyer Don Evans of Fletcher Heald, which represents PMCM, in an interview Thursday. The number of viewer complaints to WJLP is rising, he said. CBS responded to PMCM's filing that the alleged failure by equipment makers to sell receivers that follow FCC rules shouldn't mean that WJLP can use a virtual channel number or a common major channel number that overlaps service contours of stations that have been on-air for "decades" on the same major channel number. CBS, owner of KYW-TV Philadelphia, which FCC records show uses virtual channel 3, and Meredith, owner of WFSB Hartford, also uses that virtual channel according to records, each opposed PMCM's newest request. After winning a court order allowing WJLP to move cross country, it has been seeking FCC OK for what many have said is a technological first in broadcasting: to run on the same main program and system information protocol (PSIP) channel as another station -- WFSB -- while each would have different PSIP subchannels (see 1409160043). Amid "the unexplained tuning anomalies alleged by PMCM, switching WJLP to a virtual channel already duplicated in the market risks extending the confusion and harm to additional stations," said Meredith. "The anomalies that PMCM identifies, if widespread, may well warrant careful investigation by the Commission." Of the sets WJLP tested, "it's not just old, off-brand sets, it’s TV sets from major manufacturers, they are fairly new sets, and for whatever reason, they’re not applying the PSIP channel properly," said Evans. "We agree with CBS that there is some problem with the receivers, because some of them don’t have the problem, and some of them do." He said PMCM isn't seeking enforcement action against the manufacturers, as CBS sought.

Nielsen will launch an improved version of its system for measuring radio listenership in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore in October, Nielsen officials said at the NAB Radio show in Atlanta. The new system, an enhanced version of the ratings company's current Critical Band Encoding Technology (CBET) system, is better able to measure ratings in an “acoustically crowded” environment, said Arun Ramaswamy, Nielsen chief engineer. Nielsen rates radio listenership through signals that are encoded in radio broadcasts and picked up by Nielsen's portable people meter (PPM) devices worn by their panelists. Quiet radio content, such as talk, can make it hard to mask the PPM signal, while loud content can make it hard for PPMs to pick up those signals, broadcast industry officials told us. The enhanced CBET process is better able to handle those situations, Ramaswamy said. What is not clear is the effect of Nielsen's new system on The Telos Alliance's Voltair device, which broadcasters buy to improve PPMs' receipt of Nielsen's encoded rating signal. Voltair enhances “opportunities” for the signal to be picked up, said Telos Alliance Director of Multimedia Marketing Kirk Harnack in an interview. Broadcasters have had an 8 percent improvement in their ratings when using Voltair, Telos Alliance Vice President Geoff Steadman told another crowd gathered for Voltair's presentation. Industry officials are concerned that Nielsen may take some sort of action against Voltair or broadcasters who use the device, broadcast attorneys and officials told us. That possibility is one reason for large crowds at the company's events at the radio show, broadcast officials told us. Nielsen Local Media Director Matt O'Grady wouldn't comment on the matter. Steadman said he didn't know how the new CBET system would affect Voltair's product, and the company won't know until it can study the new system.

Rainbow PUSH Coalition's 15-year quest against Sinclair has resulted in "a mountain of wasteful filings" at the FCC, and the group has shown no harm from the broadcaster's buy of Allbritton Communications TV stations, the acquirer said. There's no merit in the group's allegations that Sinclair isn't fit to be an FCC licensee, the company said in a filing posted Tuesday in docket 13-203. The group has said Sinclair has improper control over Cunningham Broadcasting (see 1408260032). A Rainbow PUSH supplement in the proceeding asking that the matter of whether Sinclair has been forthcoming with the agency about its relationship with Cunningham be designated for a hearing provides no new information, Sinclair said. "The only 'new information' Rainbow PUSH presents in the Supplement relates to Sinclair's retransmission consent negotiations with DISH that began in June 2015 -- well after the Media Bureau action Rainbow Push seeks review of." Emails between Dish Network and Sinclair on retrans showed the broadcaster was trying to negotiate a carriage deal on Cunningham's behalf, Rainbow PUSH said mid-September (see 1509150054).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear oral argument Dec. 3 on a challenge to the FCC 2014 quadrennial review rulemaking and the rule on attribution of joint sales agreements (JSAs), said an order filed Wednesday. The case stems from a 2014 challenge by broadcast company Howard Stirk Holdings to the rule that makes JSAs where one station is responsible for over 15 percent of another’s ad sales attributable for ownership calculations (see 1406040063). The JSA rule is “arbitrary and capricious” and violates the Administrative Procedure Act, HSH said in its initial filing. HSH had applied for the first waiver under the new JSA rules to allow it to participate in Sinclair's buy of Allbritton Communications TV stations. Sinclair announced a restructuring of that deal to comply with the new JSA regulations, which HSH said it means it couldn't participate even with a waiver it sought on public interest grounds as one of the few remaining broadcast operations owned by an African American.

Stations that make their public inspection files available online shouldn't be required to make their facilities open to the public, said Commissioner Mike O'Rielly in a blog post. The commission should clarify its current and future online public file rules to make this clear, O'Rielly said Tuesday. “This positive step will improve the safety of broadcast stations while enhancing public access to key records.” Public file inspection requirements create “a potential weakness” in broadcaster security, O'Rielly said. “When unknown individuals are allowed into a broadcast facility for any purpose, but in particular, to review the public inspection file, the list of potential risks can be quite long, including violence.” The FCC included -- at O'Rielly's urging -- a request for comment on the security ramifications of online public files in its most recent online political file NPRM, but received little response, O'Rielly said. “It would be helpful to have a more fulsome record” on the threats and harms facing broadcast station workers and whether online public file could address them, he said. “I call on my fellow Commissioners to help to improve the safety and security of America’s broadcasters and their employees by reducing unnecessary access if or when any efforts to expand the online public file go live.”

The FCC Enforcement Bureau's recent spate of proposed fines against pirate radio operators has largely targeted the “low hanging fruit,” said Douglas Miller, district director of the Atlanta field office, during a Q&A session at the NAB Radio Show in Atlanta. More sophisticated pirate radio operators will take the bureau longer to track down and will require a more involved investigation, Miller said. The recent notices of apparent liability (see 1509180063 and 1509140038) against pirate operators have all involved unlicensed operators in New Jersey that were initially warned years ago, and each has proposed a fine of $15,000. They're the bureau's first efforts at a stiffer enforcement policy for pirate radio operators, Miller said Tuesday. After warnings and fines, pirate radio operators that continue to broadcast will have their equipment seized, Miller said. The targets of the recent NALs are still at the stage for fines, he said. Pirate radio had been expected to be a big topic at the show (see 1509250061).

The FCC's plans to reallocate broadcast spectrum to wireless use and preserve a vacant band for white space use after the incentive auction will “marginalize and even impair LPTV operators,” low-power TV operator DTV America said in comments posted in docket 15-146 Tuesday. The proposals discourage future investment in LPTV and risk past investments, DTV America said. By putting wireless services ahead of LPTV, the FCC is upending a long-standing priority system, and concentrating spectrum “in the hands of the wealthiest entities,” DTV America said.