The FCC Media Bureau Audio Division tentatively selected Canton Seventh-day Adventist (CSDA) Church to be awarded a construction permit for a new noncommercial educational (NCE) FM station on Channel 254A at Asbury, Iowa, the bureau said. Aquinas, CSDA, Family and Grace filed mutually exclusive applications for an NCE FM facility on this channel in the August through September 2014 filing window for existing, vacant FM allotments on channels 221 through 300, reserved for NCE use, the bureau said. The filers were required to demonstrate that their proposal would provide a first or second NCE service to at least 10 percent of the population in the proposed station’s service area, including at least 2,000 people, it said. Aquinas, Family and Grace failed to make the required population showing to satisfy the reservation criteria, the bureau said. CSDA showed it would provide first and second NCE service to 11.2 percent of the total population in its contour, it said.

All three ATSC 3.0 audio system proponents delivered detailed system proposals on time by the Monday deadline, marking the formal beginning of the review, ATSC said Tuesday. The three proponents are Dolby Labs, DTS and the MPEG-H audio consortium of Fraunhofer, Qualcomm and Technicolor. Their systems will be tested "discretely and in their entirety" this summer "as comprehensive, end-to-end systems" for use as the audio layer for the ATSC 3.0 signal, with the goal to complete a candidate standard for ATSC 3.0's audio component this fall, ATSC said.Though DTS has yet to formally introduce its DTS:X object-based surround technology, the ATSC released the most comprehensive summary of the technology disclosed so far. "DTS:X is the next-generation object-based codec technology from DTS," said the summary submitted to and released by ATSC. "This release is the successor to DTS-HD and marks another milestone in DTS's long line of industry-leading sound innovations. DTS:X delivers the ultimate in flexibility, immersion and interactivity to listeners of all forms of entertainment. The DTS:X solution for ATSC 3.0 is an end-to-end broadcast chain that includes support for key elements including both audio channels and objects, advanced loudness and dynamics management, device and environmental playback processing, and is integrated with DTS's Headphone:X technology." DTS:X will be delivered "with the industry support and certification that has made DTS the trusted partner for industry professionals all over the world," the summary said. "Manufacturers representing nearly 90 percent of the home AV receiver and surround processor market, as well as several integrated circuit providers, have agreed to launch products supporting DTS:X in 2015. DTS is also working with a wide range of infrastructure partners to ensure broadcasters have choices when building a complete system." Much more has been disclosed about the Dolby and MPEG-H technologies, though the ATSC-released summary of Dolby's proposal offered the first confirmation that the Dolby AC-4 codec is at the heart of its ATSC 3.0 audio proposal (see 1501210023). "Rooted in generations of broadcast audio experience, Dolby AC-4 provides the content and device industries a strong foundation to collaboratively build leading-edge audio experiences that meet the needs of consumers of varied interests and abilities," Dolby's summary said.

The FCC should ensure that Charter Communications’ customers are able to purchase and attach their own modems, Zoom Telephonics said in an ex parte notice posted Monday in docket 14-57. Charter restricted subscribers from attaching customer-owned modems for more than two years with “unclear and in some cases overreaching” rules for certification of cable modems, Zoom said. One modem, without Wi-Fi capability, passed Charter’s new certification process, it said. Zoom and other manufacturers should be able to supply modems to Charter customers, it said. Charter also doesn’t state the monthly charge for cable modems that it supplies to customers, Zoom said. The commission should make Charter state its unsubsidized price for leasing cable modems, it said. Charter didn't have an immediate comment.

The FCC's Incentive Auction Task Force is holding information sessions in several cities around the country between February through June to offer broadcasters more information about the TV incentive auction and repacking process, the commission said in a public notice Monday. It will hold information sessions in Cincinnati on March 30, Columbus on March 31, Cleveland on April 1, Louisville on April 6, Indianapolis on April 7 and Las Vegas on April 13 to 14, during the NAB Show. Future visits will be announced in public notices, it said. A tentative list of cities can be found in an FCC blog post.

Comcast refused to engage in “good faith negotiation” to expand carriage of Liberman Broadcasting's (LBI) Spanish-language TV network Estrella TV, said LBI in an ex parte notice posted in docket 14-57 Friday. LBI officials met with the FCC Media Bureau March 2 about how decisions made by Comcast forced the removal of Estrella TV from Comcast cable systems in several markets, LBI said. Comcast’s actions failed to serve the public interest and goals of fostering competition, diversity and localism, LBI said. It said Comcast's planned buy of Time Warner Cable is approved, Comcast will control access to 19 of the top 20 Hispanic markets. LBI said Comcast asserted that Estrella TV's ratings lag behind other networks, so this precludes distribution parity for the network on Comcast, but Estrella received high ratings from Nielsen, LBI said. Comcast has treated other Hispanic networks favorably while it refused to expand carriage of or pay license fees to Estrella TV, LBI said. “This is the first time a programmer has pulled its signal from our customers," Comcast said in a statement emailed Friday. Comcast is "very disappointed" that LBI is taking away its Estrella stations from Comcast customers in Houston, Denver and Salt Lake City, it said: "Liberman’s precipitous action is particularly puzzling given that we are Estrella’s largest distributor and have been negotiating in good faith to reach a fair arrangement with Liberman." Eighty percent of Comcast’s customers will continue to receive Estrella in Chicago; Fresno, California; Miami; and New York, it said. "We want to continue to carry the Estrella stations for our customers in these three markets and offered to do so under our existing arrangements with Liberman, which are the same arrangements we have with other, comparable stations. Unfortunately, Liberman is insisting that we go far beyond the market and that our customers pay millions of dollars for Estrella programming, which is not widely viewed among Latino audiences, and also is insisting on significant additional distribution throughout our footprint." As the top U.S. cable provider of Spanish-language network packages, Comcast's Hispanic customers "will continue to have many viewing choices,” it said.

The FCC should reject Comcast's planned buy of Time Warner Cable because it threatens competition and goes against antitrust and communications laws, said the Stop Mega Comcast Coalition in an ex parte notice filed at the FCC in docket 14-57 Friday and not posted at our deadline. Comcast takes advantage of the device market by depriving customers of access to competing services, including blocking access to authenticated HBO content on Sony PlayStation devices via the HBO Go application, it said. The coalition said Amazon Fire TV launched the HBO Go app in December, which still remains unavailable for Comcast customers because of ongoing negotiations between the companies. It also said Comcast customers with Roku boxes were denied access to HBO Go and Showtime apps until December. Comcast’s X1 Platform would be the default streaming system for many broadband subscribers if the deal is approved, which would give Comcast/TWC “extraordinary power” over content available to consumers and force competing devices to follow its terms to enter the market, the coalition said. Comcast didn't abide by its commitments under the NBCUniversal deal, so the Comcast/TWC should be rejected, the coalition wrote in a blog post Friday. Comcast didn’t comment. Stop Mega Comcast Coalition members include Dish Network, ITTA, the LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition, National Consumer Law Center, NTCA and Public Knowledge.

The FCC should use extreme caution and tailor its rules narrowly for multichannel video programming distributors, said media organizations and content distributors in comments posted Wednesday in docket 14-261. The commission should “be slow to interfere” with the evolving concept of TV, said the Digital Media Association (DiMA) comment. The commission should be cautious about changing the definition of MVPDs, especially when the over-the-top (OTT) market is “vibrant and growing,” it said. Changes to the definition of MVPD should be “narrowly tailored to a well-defined class of online video programming distributors,” DiMA said. It approved that the rulemaking rejected a “one size fits all” approach and drew distinctions between Internet-based MVPDs and Internet-based providers of video content, it said. OTT providers should be unaffected regarding program access and carriage rules, it said. Producing and distributing video content is “already fraught with significant risk in this competitive environment,” said MPAA's comment. Changing the current content market could hinder investment and experimentation, it said. Consumer demand, not the government, should determine content and linear and other online distribution methods, MPAA said. The rules proposed in the NPRM raise issues under the First Amendment and copyright law, and also threaten the diversity of programming and licensing relationships among content creators, distributors and programmers, MPAA said. The commission should qualify Sky Angel as an MVPD (see 1503050058), Sky Angel said in its comment. Its program access complaint against Discovery has been stagnant for 27 months, while the commission imposes a five-month standard to resolve these complaints, Sky Angel said. Sky Angel wants the pro-consumer, pro-competition protections from program access rules and asked the commission to grant its renewed petition for temporary standstill, it said.

Fifty-three percent of Americans 12 and older listen to online radio monthly and 44 percent listen weekly, said a survey released Wednesday by Edison Research and Triton Digital. The survey also found that 54 percent of the Internet audio users use Pandora most often, followed by iHeartRadio at 11 percent, Spotify at 10 percent, and iTunesRadio at 8 percent. Along with Internet radio, podcasting is on the rise, with consumption growing from 39 million monthly users in 2014 to about 46 million in 2015, it found. On social media, 65 percent of those surveyed said they use Facebook most often, the report said. Facebook beats out Instagram at 18 percent, Snapchat at 15 percent and Twitter at 8 percent as the most-used social media sites among 12- to 24-year-olds, it found. The survey was done Jan. 6 to Feb. 10, with 2,002 persons 12 and older selected via random-digit dial sampling and interviewed by phone.

The ATSC is “on track” to move to an ATSC 3.0 “candidate standard” later this year, said Luke Fay, a Sony Electronics software systems engineer and chairman of the ATSC’s S32 specialist group, in the March issue of The Standard. Once a candidate standard is done, “those who would implement the details will have a chance to build equipment and test the Candidate Standard in a real world environment,” Fay said in the ATSC monthly newsletter released Tuesday. “That’s where all of the poking and prodding will be done with the elements of the system. It’s a trial of new technology, and a chance to see if anything was overlooked when developing the standard.” Next in the process, ATSC 3.0 as a “proposed standard” will be balloted on, he said: Once approved, ATSC 3.0 will be done. The upcoming audio system tests for ATSC 3.0 “will be world’s first to evaluate immersive sound for a broadcast television standard,” the newsletter said. Three immersive audio formats will be tested, it said: (1) A 7.1 surround system ("7.1+4") with four height channels added in a square above the listener; (2) The 22.2-channel three-dimensional surround format pioneered by NHK as part of its Super Hi-Vision system, (3) High-Order Ambisonics (HOA), a “scene-based” format that’s independent of channels and "can be rendered and optimally mapped into whatever reproduction channels are available to the listener." ATSC will test HOA "as rendered" to 22.2 channels, the newsletter said. ATSC’s S34-2 ad hoc group on ATSC 3.0 audio has selected about 60 sound tracks for testing the three audio systems that have been proposed for ATSC 3.0, it said. The three proponents are Dolby Labs, DTS and the MPEG-H consortium of Fraunhofer, Qualcomm and Technicolor (see 1501130054). March 9 is the deadline for all three proponents to deliver detailed technical proposals to the S34-2 ad hoc group, ATSC President Mark Richer said in the newsletter. In all, about 12-14 clips have been selected for each of the five different channel formats being tested, the newsletter said. They include Suzanne Vega’s "Tom’s Diner," a rare a cappella solo, with very little reverb added, which is why it originally came into use for this purpose, pieces from the Henry Mancini orchestra rendering of "Moon River," a live version of "Whole Lotta Love" from Robert Plant, Fleetwood Mac’s "Never Going Back Again," a clip from the soundtrack from the filmed version of Chicago featuring Catherine Zeta-Jones, and an excerpt from NBC Nightly News. “The rest are from lesser known classical or jazz artists, specialized solo-instrument recordings, applause, sports commentary/game sounds (golf and hockey), ambient recordings and cinematic sound effects,” the newsletter said.

The LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition joined NAB as an associate member to protect low-power TV and TV translators in the incentive auction and repacking process, the coalition said in an email Friday. It also will work with NAB to see if the ATSC 3.0 standard will be developed before 2016, so LPTV broadcasters can use the standard during the post-auction repacking process, it said. The FCC is closely monitoring the development of the ATSC 3.0 standard (see 1502250051).