The FCC should set the licenses of Sinclair and its sidecar companies Deerfield and Cunningham for hearing, said a petition to deny Tuesday against the renewal applications of Sinclair’s WBFF Baltimore, Cunningham’s WNUV Baltimore and Deerfield's WUTB Baltimore. Ihor Gawdiak, the Columbia, Maryland, viewer, also filed a petition to deny against the FCC’s settlement with Sinclair (see 2006290054). A “litany of documents” show “the principals of Cunningham and Deerfield are cronies of Sinclair and have no stake or risk in the business,” Gawdiak said: “They are effectively employees who serve at the whim of Sinclair.” The same ownership issues that led to the hearing designation order exist in Sinclair’s relationships with Cunningham and Deerfield, the petition said. All of Deerfield's and Cunningham's leadership has “close, multiyear connections to Sinclair or one of its controlling shareholders,” and a web of agreements limiting the decisions the companies' nominal owners can make without Sinclair’s permission meant they have no control over their daily operations, the petition said. Cunningham CEO Michael Anderson can't buy any equipment, and records appear to indicate Cunningham doesn't own any broadcast equipment, Gawdiak said. Sinclair guarantees much of Deerfield's and Cunningham's debs and compensates them for expenses, and agreements require principals of Cunningham and Deerfield Sinclair to assign the agreements to a third party of Sinclair’s choosing, the petition said. Sinclair didn’t comment.

The FCC Media Bureau canceled seven recently released political file consent decrees after discovering the stations were in compliance, said an order Monday. “Licensees have since demonstrated to the Media Bureau’s satisfaction that the radio stations identified in their respective Consent Decrees substantially complied with their political file obligations and that the Consent Decrees should be canceled.” The companies include Sumter Broadcasting, Liberty in Christ Jesus Ministry and W & V Broadcasting.

Entercom is launching its first native automotive application on select connected General Motors vehicles, it said Monday. The Radio.com in-dash app will offer local news and sports content, music stations, podcasts and on-demand audio content beginning Sept. 15.

SESAC and the Radio Music License Committee agreed to roll forward the rates from their previous public performance rates for terrestrial radio agreement until Dec. 31, 2022, said a joint news release Monday. The terms include a blanket license fee of 0.2557% of net revenue and an all-talk rate of 0.0575% of revenue, the release said. “We are pleased to carry forward the terms of the prior agreement with SESAC, which is an efficient path forward for both sides in a music licensing landscape that has become increasingly complex," said RMLC Chairman Ed Atsinger in the release. “With the agreement with SESAC, combined with the agreement earlier this year with BMI and one agreed to in late 2016 with ASCAP, the commercial radio industry has agreements in place with the major performing rights organizations except for Global Music Rights,” said Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford in a blog post. Instead, stations are using interim licenses for GMR content while the rights organization and RMLC battle out their ongoing lawsuit, Oxenford said.

The FCC Media Bureau approved Marshall Broadcasting’s bankruptcy sale of stations it purchased from Nexstar to Mission Broadcasting, a company that primarily operates stations through sharing arrangements with Nexstar. Marshall acquired the stations as part of Nexstar’s 2014 purchase of stations from Communications Corp. of America, White Knight Broadcasting and Grant Broadcasting, but in 2019 filed FCC and court complaints alleging Nexstar continued to exert financial control over the stations after the sale. In April, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas approved transferring the stations to Mission. The Congress of Racial Equality, National Newspaper Publishers Association and law firm Randall and Associates filed in opposition to the transaction, but all were rejected as lacking standing in the matter, said a Media Bureau letter Monday. The oppositions raised arguments the deal would violate the FCC's ownership rules and allow Nexstar to have control over the stations. “The Opponents provide no specific support for their allegations that the transfer to Mission would violate the Commission’s rules or otherwise not be in the public interest,” the letter said. “Prompt emergence from bankruptcy is critical to the continued operation of the Stations, and facilitating prompt emergence” advances the public interest, the letter said. Nexstar, Marshall and Mission didn’t comment.

Startup Edge Networks will soft-launch its Evoca-branded ATSC 3.0-based content service Monday in Boise through an “early access” program for the first 200 subscribers who sign up at $20 a month through year-end. The offer includes a Scout-branded receiver and indoor TV antenna, since much of Evoca’s content is broadcast locally from one of two low-power 3.0 stations in Boise being leased from Cocola Broadcasting (see 2003100036 or 2003100042). The service officially starts Sept. 1 at the standard subscription price of $49 a month, offering “60+ channels with more to come.”

The FCC has the authority to keep regulatory fees the same as last year, said NAB in calls with aides to Commissioners Brendan Carr, Jessica Rosenworcel, Mike O’Rielly, and Geoffrey Starks last week, said an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 20-105. The regulatory fee NPRM’s “blind adherence to the full-time employee model undermines its ability -- and responsibility -- to assess fees fair and equitably,” said the filing. The agency shouldn’t raise regulatory fees for radio stations when there hasn't been any change in the amount of agency attention radio requires, and when radio is disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, NAB said.

Noncommercial radio stations attached to schools that aren’t having in-person classes can still follow the COVID-19 guidance issued by the FCC earlier this year exempting them from the minimum operating requirements, said Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford in a blog post Wednesday. Oxenford is correct, the Media Bureau confirmed. “You can continue to treat the period when students are generally not on campus as a recess when the station does not need to meet these minimum operating requirements,” said Oxenford, relaying his “informal conversations” with the FCC. The matter is “murkier” for schools that partially or fully invited students back to campus, Oxenford said. “I’m told that the FCC recognizes the difficulties that stations may face in the current environment -- and in these situations where schools are open or partially open to students, if the station cannot meet the minimum operating requirements set out above, the FCC will likely be willing to grant a station temporary authority to remain silent,” he said. This probably can be done “informally, by an email" to FCC Audio Division employees, Oxenford said.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel that has ruled on all four Prometheus cases has “for nearly two decades repeatedly elevated its own policy concerns over the statutory text,” said NAB in a cert petition reply brief filed Wednesday at the U.S. Supreme Court (see 2008060064). The filing is the last before SCOTUS considers whether to grant certiorari to NAB and the FCC’s appeal of the 3rd Circuit's most recent Prometheus ruling, and the case has been distributed for a Sept. 29 conference, according to the SCOTUS website. That means the court should decide by early October whether to take the case, attorneys told us. “Unless this Court grants review now, the Third Circuit’s misguided interpretation” will “continue to distort the FCC’s quadrennial reviews and thwart Congress’s intent,” said NAB. Arguments from the public interest groups in the case that the FCC’s quadrennial review, not SCOTUS, is a more proper venue for disputing ownership rules should be rejected, NAB said. The question isn’t whether the FCC properly interpreted the intent of Congress, it's whether the 3rd Circuit did, NAB said. “There is no authority for respondents’ extraordinary proposition that this Court may not correct a lower appellate court’s interpretation of a statute unless and until an agency ‘grapple[s] with the issue’ first.” said NAB. A grant of cert is “urgently needed now,” NAB said. “Due to the same Third Circuit panel’s repeated decisions, ownership rules from decades ago are frozen in place.”

The FCC’s approach to regulatory fees results in broadcasters paying for full-time employees in agency divisions such as the Office of Engineering and Technology that don’t work on broadcast issues, and the agency shouldn’t raise fees during the COVID-19 pandemic, NAB President Gordon Smith told Chairman Ajit Pai, according to an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 20-105 (see [Reg:2006300070]). “NAB cannot recall a case in recent memory where OET expended resources to work on an issue impacting the radio industry,” the filing said. The pandemic has “gutted” radio operations, NAB said. “Of all times, now is not the one for the Commission to turn its back on its duty to consider that the radio industry has not received any additional benefits from the work of the Commission during FY2020,” the filing said. “The NPRM continues to approach regulatory fees as if Congress never passed the RAY BAUM’S Act,” said the filing. That 2018 law in part addressed how the FCC calculates regulatory fees (see 2004220048).