Broadcasters unanimously opposed the FCC proposal to preserve more channels for unlicensed and wireless mic use, in comments on a vacant channel rulemaking. Prioritizing unlicensed use over licensed TV broadcasters upends FCC policy, said Mako, Sinclair and numerous other broadcasters in docket 15-146. The commission can't make such a “radical shift” without first establishing a record to inform it, Sinclair said. There is “no logical way” for the FCC to “legally determine that unlicensed services, which have never" before "been accorded priority” over licensed services, “should now be found to have priority,” Mako said. Without a record, the proposed policy shift is “arbitrary and capricious,” Sinclair said. The vacant band rule would interfere with broadcasters taking full advantage of the new ATSC 3.0 standard, said Bonten Media and Pearl TV. “ATSC 3.0 is a near-term reality, and the Commission’s decision in this docket should preserve its significant benefits for the American public,” Pearl said. Implementing some of the channel sharing facilitated by the new standard will require stations to alter their contours, which could become “impractical or impossible” if TV stations have to worry about protecting unlicensed channels, Pearl said. The vacant channel rule would “improperly constrain television stations’ options for new or expanded television services” and reduce the chances to make broadcasting more diverse, said the Association of Public Television Stations, Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS jointly. If the FCC does enact the rule, it should come with exemptions for noncommercial educational full-power stations and translators, they filing said. The agency can't make the vacant channel proposal into a rule because it conflicts with congressional directives to preserve low-power TV spectrum, said the LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition. The FCC must instead go back to Congress for guidance, the coalition said. The commission must provide “a legitimate opportunity” for displaced LPTV and translators to get new channels after the auction, Gray Television said. The FCC should also allow qualified LPTV stations after the auction to transition to Class A status, Gray said. The vacant channel policy is unlikely to be useful, Sinclair said. “The likelihood that the white spaces will have practical (as opposed to theoretical) value for unlicensed service is very small,” said Sinclair. “Unlicensed uses have been permitted in the white spaces of the broadcast bands for years, but the only evidence of usage suggests a few isolated experiments (and failed experiments at that).”
Monty Tayloe
Monty Tayloe, Associate Editor, covers broadcasting and the Federal Communications Commission for Communications Daily. He joined Warren Communications News in 2013, after spending 10 years covering crime and local politics for Virginia regional newspapers and a turn in television as a communications assistant for the PBS NewsHour. He’s a Virginia native who graduated Fork Union Military Academy and the College of William and Mary. You can follow Tayloe on Twitter: @MontyTayloe .
ATLANTA -- There aren't enough commissioner votes in favor of an AM-only window for FM translator applications, broadcast attorneys told us Thursday. Their remarks on the sidelines of the NAB Show came after Commissioner Ajit Pai urged the FCC to include the window in the AM revitalization effort. Pai said he asked the other commissioners Wednesday to include the window in the draft order. “The moment of decision has arrived; Commissioners will now have to decide with whom they will stand,” said Pai in the emailed statement. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn had supported the translator window as acting chairwoman and when the idea was in an NPRM. But she introduced a new wrinkle.
ATLANTA -- Data and targeted advertising are the best way for radio to compete with digital media for ad dollars, said ad agency buyers and radio executives at the NAB Radio Show. “We're leaving a lot of dollars on the table by not having that information,” said Jennifer Hungerbuhler, Amplifi U.S. managing director-local video and audio investment. To allow radio to provide the same kind of information as digital advertising, industry officials are looking to programmatic ad technology, which will use computers to automate part of the ad selling and buying process and allow radio broadcasters to collect data and target spots, said ad industry officials, Nielsen executives and broadcasters during several panels Tuesday.
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.
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).
ATLANTA -- A false perception that radio isn't doing well and has a relatively slow rate of return are making it difficult for the industry to attract investors, said radio licensees and investment analysts at the NAB Radio Show Tuesday. Recent Nielsen studies show that radio stations are doing better than potential investors think, and that webcasting competitors such as Spotify and Pandora aren't doing as well, said Entercom CEO David Field. “We're not telling the story of radio nearly well enough,” said Connoisseur Media CEO Jeff Warshaw.
The Expanding Opportunities For Broadcasters Coalition will dissolve Wednesday, as expected (see 1411280041). That will avoid conflicting with FCC incentive auction anti-collusion rules and because the rules for the reverse auction are largely in place, said Executive Director Preston Padden on a press call Monday. Most of the licensees in the coalition will participate in the auction, he said, though they remain anonymous. Coalition members collectively own 87 stations, and they're “highly confident” that the auction will be successful and clear 125 MHz of spectrum, Padden said. Sprint's announcement over the weekend that it won't participate in the auction (see 1509280059) has “no effect” on that confidence or the auction's success, he said. He said the absence of dynamic reserve pricing, the relaxation of channel sharing rules, and a pricing plan partially based on interference were the most important factors encouraging his members to participate in the auction. Since pricing is based only partially on interference, Padden conceded that “we didn’t get everything we wanted.” He said he will be working as a consultant on the auction to private companies in the wake of the EOBC’s dissolution.
With the fate of the FCC policy on grandfathered joint sales agreements uncertain, broadcasters involved in such deals haven’t done much to unwind them yet, industry officials told us. The deadline to unwind existing JSAs is December 2016. The proposed bill to allow grandfathering, an ongoing appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and the possibility of a change in administration make that date far from certain, broadcast attorneys said. “We don’t know who a President [Donald] Trump would put on the FCC,” said Drinker Biddle broadcast lawyer Howard Liberman.
The FCC AM revitalization draft order and FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's views on the AM translator application window are expected to be the primary topics at the NAB Radio Show in Atlanta opening Wednesday. Radio broadcasters also are concerned about enforcement or rules against pirate radio stations (see 1509240066) and recent proposals by Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, the possible application of online political file rules to radio, and the progress of the effort to get active FM chips in smartphones. So said industry lawyers in interviews this week. “They're going to be asking, 'Where is the AM revitalization?'” said Womble Carlyle radio attorney John Garziglia, of broadcasters at the upcoming show.
A proposal to loosen FCC foreign ownership rules and change the way transactions with foreign buyers are handled by other federal agencies is likely to find favor with industry and could get traction at the commission, said attorneys familiar with the FCC's foreign ownership process. Outlined by Commissioner Mike O'Rielly in a blog post last week, the proposal would increase the transparency of the review process for deals involving foreign-owned companies. Since part of that process involves review by the numerous federal agencies outside the FCC that make up "Team Telecom" (a working group of representatives from the departments of Justice, State, Defense and Homeland Security, among others), the commission and the parties to a transaction don't always know the status of deals involving foreign companies, O'Rielly said. Easing the process for foreign companies to do business here would lead to similar overtures for U.S. companies doing international business, he said.