The FCC rejected four petitions for reconsideration of changes to the FM translator interference rules, as expected (see 2009150061). Tuesday's order on recon denied and dismissed recon petitions from the LPFM (low-power FM) Coalition, broadcaster Fellowship of the Earth, Skywave Communications and Charles Anderson. The petitions argued that the changes were outside FCC authority and attacked a number of aspects, including standards for what constitutes a valid interference complaint and restrictions on the location of such complaints. The LPFM Coalition argues that listeners were disenfranchised by rules not allowing broadcasters to count multiple complaints from the same building toward the complaint minimum. The FCC is unaware of “any court or agency precedent” supporting the coalition's “assertion that the Petition Clause requires the Commission to accept and consider all listener complaints of translator interference,” the order said. "If a ‘real and consistent’ interference problem caused by a translator should occur, we anticipate that the affected station will be able to readily obtain the required minimum number of listener complaints.”

Two members of a three-judge D.C. Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel appeared to side Friday with the Open Technology Fund during oral argument on its lawsuit against U.S. Agency for Global Media CEO Michael Pack. The court temporarily stayed Pack’s bid to purge grantee OTF’s leadership in July, which got scrutiny from congressional Democrats (see 2006240054). OTF lawyer Gregory Beck argued the International Broadcasting Act that sets out USAGM’s mandate doesn’t authorize Pack to make the sorts of leadership changes at OTF that he has attempted because the law didn’t specifically create the entity. DOJ lawyer Gerard Sinzdak countered that USAGM’s Radio Free Asia incubated OTF, and the agency then asked Congress to allow it to be spun off, meaning it’s “clearly” an organization Congress had in mind when it wrote the IBA. Judges Merrick Garland and Cornelia Pillard focused at times on OTF’s bylaws and how they set out USAGM’s authority over the nonprofit versus whether the IBA allows USAGM to have the control Pack attempted to assert. Senior Judge David Sentelle appeared to sympathize with USAGM’s argument that OTF’s incubation within Radio Free Asia clearly shows it’s governed by IBA’s mandate. Pack has repeatedly drawn scrutiny from Capitol Hill, including when he defied a House Foreign Affairs Committee subpoena to testify last month (see 2009240060). Six senior USAGM officials recently filed a whistleblower complaint with the State Department’s inspector general and U.S. Office of Special Counsel, claiming they had faced retaliation for noting their concerns with Pack’s abuses of authority.

The “narrow and increasingly inaccurate” way the DOJ Antitrust Division defines broadcast advertising competition prevents beneficial purchases, said the affiliate associations of all four big networks in a joint letter Wednesday. The DOJ’s definition of local advertising competition means it will always view local broadcast markets as highly concentrated and broadcast deals as enhancing market power, the letter said. Allowing more broadcast transactions is the “cure” for declining local news offerings, the affiliate groups said. “The costs of providing local news can be amortized across two stations, and the programming can be offered throughout the daily schedule of each outlet, leading to a substantial increase in output,” the groups said. “Clinging” to an “anachronistic view” of competition has “a deleterious impact on local journalism and programming,” the letter said. DOJ held a workshop on possible changes to its view of broadcast markets in 2019 but hasn't announced any policy changes in that area (see 1905020068).

The FCC should prioritize allowing AM stations to voluntarily go all-digital (see 1911200056), said NAB, Xperi and Hubbard in a call with an aide to Chairman Ajit Pai Friday, per a filing posted Tuesday in docket 19-311. They discussed availability of the HD radio receivers for all-digital AM, Hubbard’s experimental all-digital station, and how the service could be deployed.

Full-power commercial and Class A TV stations can start populating their 2020 children's TV programming reports in the FCC's licensing and management system (LMS), though they won't be able to file them until Jan. 1, said a Media Bureau public notice in Friday's Daily Digest. It said that starting with the 2021 reports, licensees will be able to populate and save in the LMS starting Jan. 1 of the year the report will cover and file Jan. 1 of the following year.

Eliminating broadcast antenna siting rules, approved by the FCC in August (see 2008050064), takes effect Monday, says that day's Federal Register.

E.W. Scripps' proposed $2.65 billion purchase of Ion (see 2009240044) will let New Scripps reach 73% of U.S. TV households without the UHF discount, and 39% with the discount, Scripps emailed us Friday. It said New Scripps will operate 107 stations in 76 markets but didn't specify what 23 stations are to be sold. The buyer also won't yet identify the acquirer of those outlets that are being shed. Thirty-nine percent is the current FCC limit on the portion of TV households one company can reach through its stations.

Ending the freeze on station license modification applications that was started in anticipation of the broadcast incentive auction and instituting new failing station criteria were among media modernization ideas floated by FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly in a blog post Friday. Expected to depart the agency in coming months, he urged allowing waivers of low-power TV processing rules for some in-market station moves, easing the regulatory approvals for VHF stations seeking to upgrade to UHF channels and streamlining the process for TV stations changing their community of license. Pointing to what he called "the double-whammy" of the pandemic and the challenge of competing with unregulated internet-based providers, "these reforms are more critical than ever," the commissioner said.

The FCC Media Bureau approved an America’s Public Television Stations/PBS petition giving noncommercial educational TV translator stations a waiver from the carriage election notice requirement that they email a “baseline” carriage notice by Oct. 1 to MVPDs they expect carriage on in the 2021-2023 carriage cycle, in an order in Thursday's Daily Digest.

TV stations, like radio in recent months, could get a slew of political file consent decrees as a signal of FCC interest in those files being up to date and accurate, Media Bureau Policy Division lawyer Gary Schonman said during an FCBA event Tuesday. Most of those, minus consent decrees brought against the big six station chains (see 2007220070), were the result of radio license renewals and stations certifying their public file obligations, he said. TV renewals are starting and will run through 2023, so it's too early to say whether video will have similar consent decree activity, he said. NAB told us it plans to send compliance manual templates by week's end to small and midsize radio stations that they then can personalize. The FCC has sent out 106 consent decrees to broadcasters due to widespread noncompliance and expect that close to 300 will go out as it goes through the current two-year license renewal cycle, said Policy Division Assistant Chief Robert Baker. He said the radio industry and TV broadcasters “are getting their acts together." Baker said a major issue has been getting broadcasters mindful that there's a digital date stamp when they upload materials into their online political files. Some stations in smaller radio markets weren't aware they were required to post into a digital file, "which is a little bit surprising," he said. Schonman said the clock for broadcasters to upload in their political files starts ticking when they receive a firm request to buy airtime for an issue or candidate ad. Asked when a local issue or candidate ad triggers a national importance issue, Schonman said it depends, and if a station decides in a particular situation that an ad was purely local, the FCC will generally defer to that good-faith judgment. Fox Corp. Vice President-FCC Legal and Business Affairs Ann Bobeck said the political ad space is changing rapidly. She mentioned big spending in Florida, presidential campaigns buying at local as well as national levels since the start of the year, and digital ad platforms trending upwards.