The FCC Media Bureau will seek comment on a petition for rulemaking by Ocean State TV to delete Channel 17 WPXQ-TV Block Island, Rhode Island, from the DTV table of allotments and substitute Channel 17 at Newport said an NPRM released Tuesday. Ocean State operates WPXQ as a shared channel with its WLWC New Bedford, Massachusetts, the NPRM said. Ocean State also wants the agency to change WPXQ’s community of license to Newport, the NPRM said. Newport is a larger community than Block Island and this won’t involve a change in station facilities, the NPRM said.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau and other federal authorities seized radio equipment from a Manhattan pirate station April 10, the commission said in a release Tuesday. It was a joint effort by the FCC, the U.S. Marshals Service and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. “We are pursuing multiple legal routes to stop pirate broadcasters,” said bureau Chief Rosemary Harold. Pirate station Rumba FM, which broadcast on 95.3 FM from a high-rise apartment building, ignored multiple warnings from the FCC, the agency said. “Pursuant to a federal court order, authorities seized equipment operated by the illegal radio station at that station’s antenna location on St. Nicholas Avenue in Manhattan.” Rumba FM couldn’t be reached for comment.

Gray Television, Nexstar and NAB support the FCC proposal to streamline reauthorization of satellite broadcast stations, they commented in docket 18-63 for Friday’s comment deadline, posted that day and Monday. The NPRM sought comment on relaxing rules so when such stations change owners, the FCC would no longer require the new owner to make extensive showings that the station should keep its satellite status (see 1803190048). No other entities commented, and there was no opposition to the proposal, unanimously approved by commissioners. The proposal would “increase the efficiency” of FCC oversight and reduce waste, Nexstar said. “The showings required to demonstrate the need for satellite designations are costly and time-consuming,” NAB said. All three commenters said the FCC should take up Gray’s request that a station’s satellite status shouldn’t require extensive showings even if the parent station changes. The status of a parent station is immaterial to a station’s satellite status, Gray said. The FCC’s review “focuses on whether the satellite could operate without its association with any full power station -- not on the merits of a particular parent/satellite combination,” the company said.

NextRadio developer Emmis Communications feels “very strongly about the future" for the FM-reception smartphone app, said CEO Jeff Smulyan on a Thursday earnings call. “We’ve had some terrific discussions with other broadcasters about that future, and we’re working on that.” Emmis also is “excited about the future for NextRadio outside the United States, not only in Latin America and Canada, but also now in Asia,” he said. Q4 ended Feb. 28 was “another good quarter” for NextRadio, said Smulyan. The quarter included Samsung’s agreement to unlock FM chips in its Galaxy phones and JVCKenwood’s CES announcement adopting NextRadio for the connected car (see 1801120025). “I think we are seeing the realization among our industry and among advertisers of the value of the data attribution to advertisers that we provide” through NextRadio, he said. “Stay tuned for more interesting announcements from NextRadio and our involvement with other broadcasters, who see the value of the work that we’re doing, that we need to do as an industry.”

The FCC general counsel denied another petition from Edward Stolz for reconsideration of its decision to renew the licenses of five California radio stations owned by Entercom. “Petitions for reconsideration of orders that deny reconsideration of an earlier order may be dismissed by the staff as repetitious,” said the order, released Tuesday. The Media Bureau, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and commissioners rejected previous appeals from Stolz (see 1709110047). The petition was also rejected for not stating a basis for recon.

A request for a five-year extension of waiver of broadcast requirements for audio description of non-text emergency information is “justified and appropriate,” said petitioners NAB, the American Council of the Blind and American Foundation for the Blind, in a meeting last week with staff from the Media and Consumer and Governmental Affairs bureaus, recounted a filing posted Wednesday in docket 12-107. The current waiver expires May 26. “This will allow time for industry to transition to technologies with greater potential for integrating an efficient technical solution,” the filing said. Since most emergency information conveyed through graphics echoes the information in emergency text crawls, and such crawls are already “aurally described,” the extension won’t harm consumers, said the groups.

The FCC can’t process Sinclair buying Tribune until terms and buyers of all the related divestitures are known, said the American Cable Association in a meeting Thursday with Media Bureau staff, recounted a filing posted Monday in docket 17-179. Under recently amended terms, Sinclair won’t temporarily hold ownership over any to-be-divested Tribune stations, ACA said. ACA has said even a temporary transfer to Sinclair pending a divestiture could activate after-acquired clauses (see 1803130042) in some retransmission consent contracts. ACA and bureau staff discussed whether the commission will request data and information from the parties seeking to acquire the divested stations. In a letter to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel posted Monday, Heritage Broadcasting of Michigan CEO Peter Iacobelli said Sinclair/Tribune would have disastrous effects on localism and retrans: “This merger will result in the overwhelming anti-competitive market environment.”

The Media Bureau released a $6,400 forfeiture order Monday against Wendolynn Tellez, licensee of KSAG (FM) Pearsall, Texas, for repeatedly relocating the station without FCC approval, and not building new facilities at the location authorized (see 1801100049). The penalty was reduced from the $8,000 originally proposed because of a history of complying with FCC rules, the order said.

The FCC designated the license of KLSX(FM), Rozet, Wyoming, for hearing over a record of “extended periods of silence,” said a hearing designation order (HDO) released Monday. KLSX went silent after one day of operation just after its license was issued to Family Voice Communications in 2010 and “has remained primarily silent since then,” the order said. The hearing designation order had been set for Thursday's commissioners' meeting. The agency released an agenda deletion notice a few hours after the release of the order Monday. The station has operated just a few days a year for the bulk of its existence, a total of 396 operational days out of eight years, the order said. The vast majority of that total is recent -- the station has had a string of 254 operational days since August, the order said. That operational stretch begins just after the FCC designated another station’s license for hearing over extended silences (see 1708160032). The proceeding against KLSX will be a “paper hearing” because the FCC hasn’t found any credibility issues with the facts of the proceeding, the order said. The hearing won’t involve discovery, but the agency requested copies from Family Voice of program logs and emergency alert system records. The company has 30 days after the HDO is published in the Federal Register to provide those records, and 60 days to file a response, the order said. KLSX didn’t comment.

Hemisphere Media petitioned the FCC Media Bureau for a declaratory ruling authorizing a change in the broadcaster’s foreign ownership, said a public notice Friday. The bureau in 2017 already approved Hemisphere's request to be up to 49.9 percent foreign owned, to allow a trust controlled by Mexican nationals to own a stake in the broadcaster, the PN said. Now the membership of the trust has changed and Hemisphere seeks permission for a different Mexico-based entity, Cinema Aeropuerto, to own the same stake in the company, the PN said. Comments on the petition are due June 4, replies June 19, the PN said.