The deadlines for comments on the petitions for reconsideration of the FCC's new rules for restricted use FCC registration numbers were set, said a notice in the Federal Register. Comments and opposition filings on the petitions filed by several noncommercial education stations (see 1605050058) are due June 2, while replies are due June 13 in docket 07-294.

Broadcast cross-ownership rules should be eliminated, NAB said in a meeting with FCC Media Bureau staff Thursday, said an ex parte filing posted online Monday in docket 14-50. “Retaining the cross-ownership rules in today’s media market would be arbitrary and capricious,” NAB said. The market has changed as newspapers have greatly declined while online news has become much more competitive and diverse, NAB said. “This should not come as a surprise, as the Commission, in contexts other than the broadcast ownership rules, has recognized the revolutionary nature of the Internet on competition and diversity.”

FCC approval of the April 13 petition seeking commission authorization of ATSC 3.0's physical layer (see 1604130065) would neither delay the post-incentive auction TV channel repacking nor add cost to the process, said petitioners America’s Public Television Stations, Advanced Warning and Recovery Network Alliance, CTA and NAB in May 12 meetings with staff from the offices of Chairman Tom Wheeler and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, said a Monday ex parte filing at the commission. “Most transmission equipment being manufactured today is capable of being easily upgraded to permit Next Generation TV transmission,” the petitioners told commission staff in a 13-page PowerPoint presentation, the filing said. The market-based approach of the transmission plan will keep it from being a burden to MVPDs or small broadcasters, since they won’t be forced to upgrade to receive or broadcast the new signal, the filing said. “If Next Generation TV offers a compelling viewing experience that consumers demand, MVPDs may choose to negotiate with broadcasters to carry content featuring higher resolutions, higher frame rates” and high dynamic range, the filing said. “No ambitious project can be expected to proceed without challenges,” the filing said. Though the petition asks the FCC to set the stage for the future of television, "it also seeks to protect viewers who rely on legacy equipment that may be unable to receive Next Generation TV programming," the filing said. "Broadcasters propose to lead the transition by partnering with other stations to simulcast their signals in both formats. This will ensure that viewers continue to receive free, over-the-air signals in the current standard, while also allowing broadcasters to begin delivering Next Generation TV signals." The petition underlines an approach that means "there will be no clock dictating the transition" to ATSC 3.0, unlike in the transition to digital from analog, the filing said. "If Next Generation TV provides a superior viewing experience and exciting consumer benefits, consumers will demand Next Generation-capable television receivers to take advantage of these new opportunities. Thus the market, not mandates, will drive the pace of the transition."

Gray Television will buy Clarksburg, West Virginia, stations WDTV and WVFX for $26.5 million from Withers Broadcasting, Gray said in a news release Friday. “For the past several years, Withers has owned and operated WDTV and WVFX as a legal duopoly, under an FCC Failing Station Waiver, an arrangement that Gray expects to continue,” the buyer said. “We plan to close the acquisition in multiple steps between June 2016 and a date after the conclusion of the pending FCC spectrum auction.”

The FCC Media Bureau is seeking comment on the Hispanic TV study done as part of the agency's quadrennial review of its media ownership rules, the bureau said in a public notice Thursday. Comments on the study are due May 26, replies June 3. In recent oral argument before the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the FCC said it would complete the quadrennial review this June. The commission has said the study is part of its efforts to fulfill the 3rd Circuit's requirement that it study the effects of its ownership rules on minority broadcast ownership (see 1604290019). “The Hispanic Television Study is the most comprehensive study to utilize improved Form 323 broadcast ownership data as a core analytical tool,” the PN said. The study and peer review report are here.

“Hybrid delivery” of content and services is “one of the most important things” about ATSC 3.0, LG consultant Madeleine Noland told the ATSC Broadcast Television Conference Tuesday. Since ATSC 3.0 is an Internet protocol-based system, “marrying things together from broadcast and broadband gets a little bit easier,” said Noland, who chairs ATSC’s S34 specialist group that’s responsible for ATSC 3.0's audio, video and interactivity specifications. “From the beginning, ATSC 3.0 was conceived of as a hybrid system, where you can deliver some of your components over broadcast, and some of your components over broadband,” Noland said. “You might even be delivering components over broadcast and broadband that are intended to be consumed in the same service.” For example, a broadcaster may want to carry mainstream content over broadcast, while delivering “interstitials” via broadband as part of an over-the-top service, she said. Hybrid delivery via ATSC 3.0 also can be used as a “temporary handoff” for beaming content to mobile devices, she said. “You’re in your car or you’re walking or whatever, and the signal from the broadcast fades a little bit, and so the device switches to broadband to complete the service, and then switches back to broadcast when it’s all set.”

The deadline was extended an additional month for comments on an FCC NPRM on strengthening state and local involvement in the emergency alert system, said a Public Safety Bureau public notice released Thursday. Comments are now due June 8, replies July 8, the PN said. The extension was granted after requests from the National Alliance of State Broadcasters Associations and the Broadcast Warning Working Group (see 1604290032). Though NASBA had asked for a 45-day extension, the bureau said 30 days was sufficient.

Two more petitions for reconsideration were filed by noncommercial educational licensees against FCC rules that require board members of NCE stations to give the commission personal identification information to obtain restricted-use FCC registration numbers. They follow a petition filed by numerous licensees Tuesday (see 1605040056). It’s an “ongoing challenge” for many NCE stations to find “qualified, committed individuals to donate their time and attention to station governance, much less ask personal questions to register them with the FCC,” said a joint filing by several NCE licensees, including the Board of Trustees of Florida Gulf Coast University, Capital Community Broadcasting and New Hampshire Public Broadcasting. The new rule “will have a potentially chilling effect by negatively impacting our ability to attract diverse community volunteers,” said American Public Media Group. The new RUFRN rules are intended to help the FCC study diversity in broadcasting, but public TV is already more diverse than commercial TV, the licensees argued. The commission should reconsider the RUFRN rules, both petitions said.

The FCC promised at last month’s NAB Show to put ATSC 3.0 “on a short leash,” Sinclair CEO David Smith said on a Wednesday earnings call. Once comments and replies have been submitted to the FCC by late June on the multi-industry petition for authorization of ATSC 3.0's physical layer (see 1604200051), Sinclair -- a longtime advocate of getting ATSC 3.0 implemented sooner rather than later -- thinks an ATSC 3.0 rulemaking notice “will go out as part of the normal protocol here,” Smith said in Q&A. “We think it’s reasonable that sometime early first quarter, possibly, of next year, the FCC will grant authority for the industry to move at its discretion” on the voluntary aspects of ATSC 3.0, Smith said. “So we view it just as an incredibly positive sign that the industry is ready to go, and people should start thinking about the business opportunities that are going to roll off the back of 3.0 over the next five to 10 years.” Smith regards the introduction of ATSC 3.0 as “just an enormous, life-altering event” for the broadcast industry, he said. “The NPRM should be out fairly soon,” Smith said. “Remember, this is just a procedural kind of process they go through, where they ask for comments and then they issue the NPRM, and everyone files their views of the world, and then they consider and they make a decision,” he said. “So we view this as kind of fairly routine.” FCC representatives didn’t comment.

A group of over 60 noncommercial education licensees, including many universities, want the FCC to reconsider rules that require officers and board members of NCE stations to obtain restricted use FCC registration numbers (RUFRNs), said a petition for reconsideration posted in docket 10-234 Wednesday. The NCE licensees object to the January (see 1601200064) rulemaking because they believe governing board members of universities and other nonprofit entities associated with NCE stations don't have much to do with day-to-day station operations and are likely to refuse to give up their personal information or refuse to serve if forced to comply. The FCC dismissed these concerns without having any knowledge or expertise on how their requirements could affect NCE stations, the petition said. “In the face of substantial contrary record evidence and the lack of any reasoned explanation based on Commission expertise and experience, the Report and Order’s conclusions on this point are arbitrary and capricious.” The FCC was also arbitrary in not searching for an alternative to the new RUFRN rules, the petition said.