Microsoft representatives sought additional clarity as part of an order revising the rules for TV white space devices, set for a vote Oct. 27. Microsoft spoke with commissioner aides and Office of Engineering and Technology staff, said a filing posted Friday in docket 20-36. “Make clear that a narrowband white space device can operate as a master device if it incorporates geo-location functionality and contacts the white space database to obtain a list of available channels at its location,” Microsoft advised: “Permit client narrowband white space devices to be clients to mobile and narrowband master devices, in addition to master fixed and Mode II personal/portable devices.”

Next-generation broadcast TV faces an uphill climb despite the “great job” Sinclair is doing with ATSC 3.0, Interpret Vice President Brett Sappington told a Brightcove webinar last week. “Consumers have been trained with" over-the-top, he said. "If you’re going to go to an alternative service, I think it’s more likely to go to OTT than to broadcast’s next-gen delivery." Sappington said 3.0 needs to provide something “uniquely valuable that OTT can’t do. If you can define that, you can win. If you can’t define that, you’re going to struggle.” Cord cutting hasn’t led to a meaningful increase in over-the-air viewing, said Sappington, though he’s curious to see what ATSC 3.0 does for broadcast TV. “That’s going to be a slow roll because people have to have devices, ability to access and then have to learn how to access,” he said. The new standard does allow for ways for “broadcast to grow,” he said.

Insight TV, billed as the first over-the-air 4K HDR broadcast channel in the U.S., launches Thursday in Boise on Evoca, the Edge Networks ATSC 3.0 platform (see 2004030006), said the startup. Insight TV, available 24/7 on the Evoca platform, will feature “original, adventure-focused programming and incredible storytelling,” said the company. “We built Evoca for the more than 50 million U.S. households in mid-sized markets like Boise -- where TV choices are limited and expensive,” said Evoca CEO Todd Achilles.

The FCC will seek comment on petitions for waivers of its freeze on full-power TV channel substitutions from broadcasters in Arizona and Oregon, said two public notices Tuesday. Both broadcasters are seeking to move from a VHF channel to UHF. Multimedia Holdings wants to move its KPNX Mesa from channel 12 to 18, and Sander Operating wants to move KGW Portland from 8 to 26.

The continuing pandemic could bolster arguments to relax media ownership rules, depending on the outcome of a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the FCC’s appeal of Prometheus IV, said NAB lobbyists on a Radio Show panel Thursday. “Broadcasters are under a lot of fire from a lot of competition,” General Counsel Rick Kaplan said. Local journalism has become even more important during COVID-19, and lawmakers will have to realize that preserving it while subjecting only broadcasters to outsized regulation won’t work, he said. A SCOTUS decision in the FCC’s favor could strike down rules such as the eight-voices test but might also involve sending the case back to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals with new standards for reviewing the matter, Kaplan said. “There are many things on the table.” Kaplan expects the high court argument to be heard in January or February, and a decision by June, though earlier is possible, he said. If the election brings a change in the White House, NAB believes an incoming Democratic administration could make media ownership and diversity priorities in its communications policy, said NAB Vice President-Government Relations Grisella Martinez. Kaplan said he expects prospective FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington to approach the job similarly to the ways of the commissioner he would replace, Mike O’Rielly. “He’ll come in willing to learn,” Kaplan said of Simington.

The odds of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' Prometheus IV ruling are better than 50% -- “particularly if Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed to the Court” -- but it's “certainly no sure thing,” wrote Fletcher Heald broadcast attorney Dan Kirkpatrick in a blog post Thursday (see 2010020059). A SCOTUS decision that reestablishes the broadcast ownership rule relaxations knocked down by the 3rd Circuit “could lead to increased broadcast deal-making, and potential consolidation,” Kirkpatrick said. If SCOTUS upholds the 3rd Circuit, the court’s remand to the FCC would proceed, and the matter would likely be part of the pending 2018 quadrennial review, he said. The FCC would likely have to gather the ownership and diversity data required by the court in that scenario, prolonging the review process. “The outcome of any such review would, of course, also be significantly impacted by whether a Republican or Democratic-controlled FCC is conducting that review,” Kirkpatrick said. SCOTUS could also rule separately on whether the case continues to fall under the jurisdiction of the 3rd Circuit, said the blog. Since the statute will still require future quadrennial reviews, “the saga of the FCC’s media ownership rules has a ways to go,” Kirkpatrick said.

Entertainment Studios Network CEO Byron Allen wants to invest $10 billion in acquiring big four network TV and radio stations, he said during a streamed interview for the Radio Show Thursday. Allen said he has invested $500 million in network TV stations over the past 18 months. Radio is “a great business” that's often “underestimated,” he said. “A lot of folks are down on local radio.” Streaming services will have “a tough time” replicating radio’s connection to local communities, Allen said. “I’m chasing Rockefeller,” he said, drawing a line from oil and steel fueling the industrial revolution to “the insatiable appetite” for content on digital platforms. Asked about racism in business, Allen said boardrooms don’t have true economic inclusion. Inequality is hurting the U.S. because the country needs all its citizens to stay afloat in the face of emerging global competition, he said: “Unfortunately, most Americans are set up to fail, especially Black Americans.” Allen wants free healthcare, free education and access to business startup capital, and he described climate change as the No. 1 threat to humanity.

The Society of Professional Journalists is “disturbed” by an NPR report that political appointees at the U.S. Agency for Global Media issued a complaint of bias against Voice of America White House bureau chief Steve Herman, said a release Wednesday. “Editorial independence is ‘enshrined’ in the parent agency’s enabling legislation,” said SPJ National President Matthew Hall in the release. “Bureaucrats bound by law and their better angels should not intrude on VOA’s journalism in any way.”

The FCC Enforcement Bureau reached a $15,000 settlement with a low-power FM licensee that violated underwriting rules, ownership rules and restrictions against transferring ownership of an LPFM license within three years of its issue, said an order and consent decree in Tuesday’s Daily Digest. Marconi Broadcasting Foundation -- licensee of WWRI-LP, Coventry, Rhode Island -- underwent a 100% change in its board in 2016, 14 months after the license was issued, the filings said. Marconi Director Chris DiPaola was also serving on Marconi’s board while owner of WBLQ(AM) Westerly, Rhode Island, and WWRI broadcast at least 17 “announcements on behalf of for-profit entities, in exchange for consideration,” over a 16-month period, said the filings. Marconi will follow a five-year compliance plan that includes training on underwriting rules and reporting requirements. It didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Give Fox a permanent waiver of the newspaper/broadcast cross ownership (NBCO) rule for WWOR-TV Secaucus, New Jersey, the company asked the FCC in an undocketed letter posted Tuesday. The permanent waiver would dispel “a cloud of regulatory uncertainty” hanging over the station since the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Prometheus IV ruling resurrected the NBCO rule, Fox said. The station -- which falls under the rule because of Fox’s ownership of the New York Post -- had received a series of such waivers beginning in 2001. In 2018, the FCC renewed WWOR’s license without the waiver because the NBCO was eliminated in 2017. The 2019 Prometheus IV ruling brought the rule back, though the Supreme Court last week granted certiorari in FCC and NAB appeals (see 2010020059). The FCC “has an opportunity to act now to provide immediate relief from a rule that was appropriately repealed and should never have been reinstated,” Fox said. It has a permanent NBCO waiver for WNYW New York, the broadcaster said: The agency has repeatedly found the NBCO rule isn’t in the public interest, but the 3rd Circuit has reinstated it every time.