A draft order that would allow broadcasters to communicate contest rule information online rather than over the air doesn't face any opposition on the eighth floor and addresses many concerns raised by broadcasters earlier in the proceeding, FCC officials and industry attorneys told us. The current rule for such contests causes radio stations to broadcast the legal language governing their contests in a difficult-to-follow stream of words usually read by a speed talker, attorneys said. The draft order would allow broadcasters to refer listeners to a simple website address where that legal language is listed, and the draft order leaves the decision of how often to mention the site up to broadcasters, said agency officials. The draft order is on the tentative agenda for the FCC Sept. 17 commissioner meeting.
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 .
The Media Bureau sought comment on proposals in the Downloadable Security Technological Advisory Committee final report (see 1508280035) even as stakeholders continued debating the merits of FCC action on what DSTAC proposed. The bureau, in a public notice Tuesday, asked “how it should inform the Commission’s obligations” to promote competitive availability for navigation devices. The Public Knowledge and TiVo-backed Consumer Video Choice Coalition (CVC) and DSTAC member Hauppauge released statements Tuesday asking the FCC to implement recommendations from the report.
Broadcasters and NCTA disagree whether allowing TV stations engaged in second-generation channel sharing to keep their must-carry rights is a bigger burden for cable carriers. Their opinions came in replies posted Friday and Monday in FCC docket 15-137. Second-generation channel sharing is channel sharing after the incentive auction is over and is unrelated to converting broadcast spectrum to wireless use, and NCTA doesn’t think the agency should allow licensees that give up their spectrum to retain their must carry-rights. “Allowing post-auction channel sharing would likely multiply carriage disruptions and distortions -- while failing to serve any legitimate governmental interest,” NCTA said. “If two stations have carriage rights before they enter into a channel sharing agreement, and they preserve carriage rights after entering the agreement -- how has the burden on the MVPD [multichannel video programming distributor] increased at all?” countered NAB.
Broadcasters ratcheted up a push for an FCC FM translator window for AM stations, as expected (see 1508270029), with lobbying visits and a letter to Chairman Tom Wheeler. Any approach to AM revitalization that doesn’t include an AM-only window for FM translator applications will make it “extremely difficult” for AM stations to remain competitive, 50 CEOs of minority-owned AM licensees said in a letter to Wheeler Monday. “AM radio has been the technological gateway for entrepreneurs of color in broadcasting,” said the letter, which listed officials from the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC) and National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters as contact points. “Two-thirds of minority-owned broadcast stations are AM radio stations,” the letter said. The draft AM revitalization order doesn't include a translator window.
Just a half-hour after the FCC's Downloadable Security Technical Advisory Committee formally completed its work and submitted its final report, 30 companies -- many of them DSTAC member pay-TV companies -- released a statement asking the FCC to not take any action based on the document. “There is no need for FCC technology mandates in a marketplace where consumers can access MVPD [multichannel video programming distributor] and OVD [online video distributor] content on a wide and growing array of retail devices,” said the statement, signed by the American Cable Association; DSTAC members Arris, Comcast and Dish Network; NCTA; Verizon; and many others in the pay-TV industry. The Free State Foundation and NCTA also separately urged the FCC not to interfere with the marketplace through regulations on downloadable security. “The report reflects substantial opposition to the idea of a new, government-imposed technology mandate,” NCTA said. Several MVPD industry officials had told us they wanted the FCC to take no action (see 1508260034).
A draft FCC order to revitalize the AM band doesn’t include a proposal to create a specific FM translator window for AM stations to apply for FM translator construction permits, said broadcast attorneys and an agency official in interviews. Though the draft order contains other proposals to help AM stations, industry lawyers said the FM translator window is seen as the most important idea for helping AM radio from the AM revitalization NPRM. The draft order says a specific window for AM is unnecessary, an FCC official said. It does contain proposals for waiver policies and proposals to make it easier for AM stations to operate, proposes changing standards seen as outdated and includes a further NPRM seeking comment on other proposals for the AM band, said an agency official and industry lawyers.
Emergency alert system officials are conflicted about the possibilities of giving electronic messaging and social media an increased role in emergency alerting, according to panelists at an FCC EAS workshop Thursday. There are ways to use multimedia to get information to the public and get information from the public, said Jay English, APCO director-communications center and 911 service. Combining EAS and wireless messages and social media makes Maine Association of Broadcasters CEO Suzanne Goucher “very nervous,” she said. “We’ve got a lot of serious top-level questions” to answer before such changes are implemented, Goucher said.
With STELAR requiring the FCC Downloadable Security Technical Advisory Committee to produce a report on a downloadable security successor to CableCARD a week after its final meeting this Friday, committee members and industry officials are divided on whether the DSTAC efforts should lead to any further action, they said in interviews this week. The Satellite Television Extension and Localization Act Reauthorization-mandated report will offer two proposals, one backed by the committee's pay-TV interests and one backed by Public Knowledge and TiVo (see 1508040062). Officials on the pay-TV side said they hope the FCC takes no further action after receiving the report. The other side wants further commission action.
The FCC is expected to clarify incentive auction anti-collusion rules next month and respond to numerous broadcaster questions about the impact of the rules, broadcast attorneys said in interviews Friday. The anti-collusion rules bar all auction-eligible broadcasters from communicating about their bidding strategy or incentive auction plans in any way between the short form application deadline and the end of the incentive auction. FCC officials and broadcast attorneys close to the issue have told us since May that commission officials were reviewing questions about the anti-collusion rules submitted by the FCBA. A recent filing from public TV groups (see 1508140068) focusing on questions about whether the rules would impact many of the day-to-day processes of stations may have galvanized FCC officials into responding, some broadcast attorneys said. The FCC didn't comment.
Many of the FCC's most used “public facing applications” will be down for six days that include Labor Day weekend to allow upgrades to the commission's IT systems, the FCC said in a public notice and accompanying blog post from Chief Information Officer David Bray Thursday. The outages are to be from 6 p.m. EDT Sept. 2 to 8 a.m. Sept. 8, the FCC said. The affected systems include the Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS) and the Universal Licensing System (ULS), and the FCC is moving deadlines for all proceedings affected by the outage, the PN said. “It sounds as though it will be a lot like the government shutdown,” Fletcher Heald broadcast attorney Dan Kirkpatrick told us. In that shutdown, ECFS and other FCC filing systems were essentially offline (see 1310180026).