An Arkansas law firm filed a class-action antitrust lawsuit in Maryland federal court against Sinclair and Tribune accusing them of colluding to fix advertising prices, connecting the accusation to reports DOJ is investigating the companies over advertising sales amid the FCC designating Sinclair/Tribune for hearing. “This antitrust class action arises from a conspiracy among Defendants and their coconspirators to fix prices for commercials to be aired on broadcast television stations,” said the complaint (in Pacer) in U.S. District Court in Maryland by the Law Offices of Peter Miller, a Sinclair advertiser. The broadcasters conspired to artificially inflate ad prices in response to insufficiently increasing revenue, the complaint said. Sinclair and Tribune had “numerous opportunities to conspire” as members of associations like NAB and were negotiating a deal to combine, the complaint said. An NAB spokesman said it's "laughable" to suggest that the association had any involvement in price-fixing. The companies colluded “by having members of their advertising sales teams share competitively sensitive information and data with each other, which they used to raise advertising prices to levels higher than they otherwise would have been,” the complaint said. The lawsuit is on behalf of all direct purchasers of advertising from them in the U.S. The plaintiff, Sinclair, Tribune and DOJ didn’t comment.

Hearst will buy CW affiliate WPXT Portland, Maine, from Ironwood Communications subject to regulatory approval, Hearst said Monday. Hearst TV owns the market’s ABC affiliate, WMTW Portland Spring. Hearst also owns stations in Boston, Manchester, New Hampshire, and two stations in Vermont.

Entercom announced the end of its advertising reseller agreement with United States Traffic Network in a release Monday, responding to a $5 million lawsuit filed by USTN against the radio broadcaster Friday. Entercom entered into negotiations to buy USTN and “at the last minute, walked away from the sale,” and “informed USTN that it was going to develop a direct competitive business based upon the information gleaned during the due diligence/discovery process,” said USTN’s complaint in 269th District court in Harris County, Texas. “We are relieved to no longer be mired by the difficult USTN situation that was inherited as part of the CBS Radio merger,” Entercom CEO David Field said. “The lawsuit is entirely baseless, frivolous and frankly insulting.” Entercom ”worked tirelessly and constructively “to help USTN work through financial issues, the radio broadcaster said. “Entercom is owed substantial amounts of money by USTN, and the Company intends to defend itself vigorously and assert all of its rights,” Entercom said. USTN accused the company of intentionally inducing it to miss a scheduled debt payment “under the pretenses that this payment would be unnecessary due to the planned closing of the purchase transaction.”

The CBS board is selecting outside counsel “to conduct an independent investigation,” it said. The board said Friday it would investigate sexual abuse allegations against CEO Les Moonves (see 1807270032). The 2018 annual stockholder meeting, originally set for Aug. 10, is postponed. The stock closed down another 5.1 percent Monday at $51.28.

Noncommercial radio station WVGV(FM) West Union, W.Va., will lose “a measurable number of listeners and supporters” if the FCC limits translator interference complaints outside a full-power station’s 54 dBu contour as is proposed in the FM translator NPRM, said WVGV’s licensee Araiza Revival Ministries in docket 18-119. Araiza has “numerous sponsors” in communities outside that contour, the filing said. Allowing translators to interfere with the station at the contour limit would be “a tremendous disservice” to WVGV’s listeners. “The FCC’s efforts to revitalize the AM service should not concomitantly degrade the FM radio service.”

Scripps will sell two Milwaukee radio stations to Wisconsin sports marketer and broadcaster Good Karma Brands for $16 million, the seller said Friday. The deal for WTMJ(AM) and WKTI(FM) is expected to close in Q4. The deal is part of a larger effort by Scripps to sell off its 34 radio stations (see 1801260032); in June, Scripps announced the sale of five radio stations in Tulsa (see 1806250041). “We are on track for the sale of our entire radio station group as a component of our enterprise-wide strategy,” the broadcaster said.

The draft incubator order doesn’t meet the court order that the FCC analyze the effects of ownership changes on minorities, and it relies on “inadequate data,” said Free Press, the Communications Workers of America, Common Cause and United Church of Christ, Office of Communication in a letter and phone conversation with an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel Thursday, according to filings in docket 14-50. The incubator order won’t address the “harms to ownership diversity” from the media ownership reconsideration order because that order’s rule changes mainly affected TV ownership and the incubator draft order is limited to radio, the letter said. That means the draft order doesn’t satisfy requirements from the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the FCC consider the effects of ownership rules on women and people of color, the letter said. “The Commission has ignored our insistence that it adopt measures which have been scientifically validated for their effectiveness through data and study.” Though Free Press said the FCC shouldn't issue an incubator order during the NPRM phase of the rulemaking process (see 1807060021), they changed their stance in the letter. ”Our organizations are emphatic that we would fully endorse a Commission proposal that would in fact improve ownership rates by women and people of color,” the letter said. “The current incubator proposal will do nothing to improve ownership diversity.”

Petitions to deny Gray Television’s proposed $3.6 billion buy of Raycom are due Aug. 27, said a public notice in Friday’s Daily Digest (see 1806250057). Opposition filings are due Sept. 11 and replies Sept. 21, the PN said. Though Gray and Raycom said they will divest stations to comply with FCC rules in the nine markets where the two groups overlap, the deal also includes existing top-four duopolies currently owned by Raycom in Amarillo, Texas, and Honolulu that will have to go through the FCC’s case-by-case top-four process, the PN said. Gray is also seeking satellite waivers in three markets, for stations also owned by Raycom. The deal includes radio stations in Amarillo and Lamesa, Texas, as well, the PN said.

CBS’ board is “committed to investigating claims [of activities] that violate the Company’s clear policies" on sexual abuse, said a statement after reports The New Yorker is soon to publish a story on allegations of such abuse against CEO Les Moonves. "Upon the conclusion of that investigation, which involves recently reported allegations that go back several decades, the Board will promptly review the findings and take appropriate action,” the broadcaster said. It noted the allegations are surfacing during CBS’ “very public legal dispute” with Viacom. ”While that litigation process continues, the CBS management team has the full support of the independent board members,” it said. “All allegations of personal misconduct are to be taken seriously.” The broadcaster's stock closed down 6.1 percent at $54.01.

The FCC Media Bureau Audio Division fined Roy Henderson, licensee of WBNZ(FM) Frankfort, Michigan, $18,000 for operating at reduced power levels for 17 months without authorization, said a forfeiture order in Thursday’s Daily Digest. Henderson didn’t disclose the reduced power in a subsequent request to go silent, and didn’t respond to a notice of apparent liability, the order said. Also admonished was KTBS Shreveport, Louisiana, for violating equal employment opportunity rules, the bureau said. KTBS self-reported it “inadvertently failed to provide notification” of four full-time vacancies out of 26 in 2017 and four out of 14 in 2018 to its local NAACP unit, which had requested such notification, the letter said. The licensee reported it notified the group "of the majority of full-time vacancies during the audit reporting period and that the NAACP had not referred any applicants in the 13 years since its initial request,” the admonishment letter said.