The withdrawal of Entertainment Media Trust’s bankruptcy trustee from the broadcaster's license hearing proceeding is being held up by EMT’s unpaid regulatory fees, trustee Donald Samson said in a status report posted in FCC docket 19-156 Wednesday. With the bankruptcy proceedings ended by EMT, Samson filed an application to transfer EMT’s licenses back to the broadcaster, but action on the application “is being withheld due to a ‘red light’ for unpaid regulatory fees owed by EMT,” the filing said. Samson is “working with the Media Bureau staff, many of whom were on extended leave over the holidays, to allow the application to be processed expeditiously and without payment of the fees.”

The Missouri Broadcasters Association won at the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Wednesday when a three-judge panel affirmed a lower court decision a Missouri state law barring alcohol sellers from advertising discounts violates the First Amendment. The law restricted speech, had arbitrary exceptions and the state has other alternatives to combat overconsumption of alcohol without limiting speech, such as increasing taxes on alcohol, the court said. “Missouri did not present any evidence showing overconsumption or underage drinking is less frequent in Missouri than in states without similar advertising restrictions.” Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt didn't comment.

The FCC Media Bureau plans a webinar Jan. 23 at 1:30 p.m. EST on changes to children’s TV reports after FCC revision of kidvid rules (see 1911150064), said a public notice in Wednesday’s Daily Digest.

The University of Arkansas board agreed to pay $76,000 for violating FCC policies around noncommercial underwriting, said an Enforcement Bureau order in Tuesday’s Daily Digest. The UA affiliated Cossatot Community College’s Arkansas FM stations KPBU De Queen and KTYC Nashville aired spots promoting underwriters' products and services, a consent decree said. Other broadcasters reported the violations -- from September 2016 -- and the licensee admitted to them after receiving FCC letters of inquiry. The agency hasn’t adopted quantitative guidelines on underwriting announcements but “has found that the longer the announcement, the more likely it is to contain material that is inconsistent with their ‘identification only’ purpose, the order said. The FCC “expects that licensees will exercise reasonable ‘good faith’ judgment in this area and affords some latitude to the judgments of licensees who do so.” The school must implement compliance and education programs and file compliance reports for five years.

Using analog TV channel 6 to provide primarily audio content as a “Franken FM” radio station is “a waste of spectrum,” said Mark Heller, president of Wisconsin AM licensee WTRW, in comments filed early in FCC docket 03-185. Low-power TV stations broadcasting signals receivable on FM typically air only a title slide and station identification on the visual portion of their transmission, Heller said. “There is absolutely no audience” for title slides or weather radar images, he said: Open up those frequencies for FM stations, Heller said. The approximately 50 LPTV stations running as “Franken FMs” could be converted to FM “without a single listener complaint” and cease “generating heat, wasting electricity” with unwatched visual feeds, Heller said.

Comments are due March 9, replies April 6 on an FCC proposal to allow all-digital AM broadcasting, says Tuesday’s Federal Register (see 1911240003).

Year-end totals show around 200 added FM translators since a year ago, per a release Friday. The report in Friday's Daily Digest shows 11,803 FM translators, compared with 11,606 in December 2018. No other category of broadcaster showed such a shift. There are 15,500 full-power radio stations and 1,762 full-power TV stations, compared with 15,508 full-power radio stations and 1,761 full-power TVs. There are now 1,892 low-power TV stations, down from 1,908, and 387 Class A's, unchanged.

FCC rejection of Channel 51 of San Diego’s low-power TV displacement application shouldn’t be overturned, though it cites an incorrect section of the rules (see 1911130048), said Los Angeles County in an opposition filing. The agency should have cited rules for protecting land mobile stations from LPTV interference, the county said. “Nevertheless, the Commission’s decision was correct and should stand.” The agency’s conclusion was based on interference analysis, the county said: Channel 51 was assigned a viable channel, so it doesn’t meet the burden required for waiver.

The FCC “placed the interest of a private equity firm ahead of everyday people” by approving Terrier Media’s buy of Cox Enterprises stations (see 1911220069) and Terrier’s plan to comply with newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rules by reducing the Dayton Daily News publication schedule, wrote Dayton, Ohio, Mayor Nan Whaley (D) and former FCC Commissioner Mike Copps in USA Today Thursday. “A region of nearly 1 million people will bear the brunt of these devastating cuts to its primary news source.” The deal's OK “with its explicit endorsement of profit over the public interest demonstrates that the FCC has lost its way.” The FCC had done away with the cross-ownership rules when Terrier proposed the purchase, but the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ Prometheus IV restored the rule before the agency approved the transaction. Copps is a special adviser to Common Cause, a Prometheus petitioner. “FACT CHECK: The FCC eliminated the stupid and outdated rule that is leading to this outcome, but the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, at the urging of your co-author, reinstated it,” tweeted Matthew Berry, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's chief of staff. “I suspect your co-author neglected to inform you that the very restrictions he supports are one of the major elements responsible for the decline in local journalism (in Dayton and elsewhere),” tweeted NAB General Counsel Rick Kaplan to Whaley. In the absence of the Prometheus "ruling we would not have revised the filing this way," emailed a Terrier spokesperson. "From the beginning, we saw our investment to improve services to local communities and this operational change was not our intent nor in our original filing.”

FCC rules allow “any party” to a proceeding to appear in person before the FCC, said Entertainment Media Trust trustee Dennis Watkins in a filing in docket 19-156 responding to Enforcement Bureau arguments that an official of a trust can't represent the trust pro se before the FCC (see 1912260042). Since Watkins is the trustee of EMT, he should be able to represent the trust in the broadcaster’s license hearing, he said. Watkins also said if Administrative Law Judge Jane Halprin disagrees that Watkins qualifies as a party, she should use the discretion she's given in another section of the rules to authorize his appearance. Halprin previously said if an EMT representative didn’t file a notice of appearance in the matter, the case could be dismissed. That would likely mean the loss of EMT’s licenses.