The Enforcement Bureau proposed a $15,000 fine against Andrew Turner of Miami Gardens, Florida, for operating unlicensed radio station “BIG Station 95.9” in Broward County, Florida, after repeated warnings from the FCC, said a notice of apparent liability issued Friday. “Mr. Turner’s deliberate disregard of the Commission’s warnings warrants a significant penalty,” said the NAL. FCC agents tracked the station in January to a private home that featured signs advertising “One Caribbean International” and “WBIG International Solushuns, Inc.,” companies that Turner heads, the NAL said. Agents tracked the station to the same house in March, and left a notice of unlicensed operation at the house. Two more notices were issued in March, and agents found in September that the station was still operating out of the same house, the NAL said. According to a video of a working DJ marked as “live” streaming on wbigstation.net, the station is apparently still broadcasting. Officials at the station didn't comment.

The FCC released instructions for filing the short-form application for TV stations to participate in the reverse auction, and an online tutorial on the pre-auction process, in a public notice Thursday. To sign up for the reverse auction, applicants use their FCC registration numbers and the commission's auctions system. The application filing window begins at noon EST Dec. 8, and runs through Jan. 12 at 6 p.m. Although stations can back out of the auction after that window closes, they can't participate unless they file an application during that window. The applications asks for information about authorized bidders, the manner in which the station is relinquishing its spectrum, and for channel sharing information, the PN said. The process and options of the form are also explained in the online pre-auction tutorial, which takes the form of a narrated slide show illustrating and explaining the information required in the buildup to the March 29 auction start. “The FCC will allow you to make as many changes as you’d like to an application during the filing window, and will not consider information in your application until you click the CERTIFY and SUBMIT button,” said Pillsbury Winthrop attorney Jessica Nyman in a blog post. “You can even withdraw a previously submitted application up until the close of the filing window. So while you should strive to get it right the first time, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

Nexstar agreed to buy four West Virginia TV stations from West Virginia Media Holdings for $130 million, Nexstar said in a news release. The deal “broadens Nexstar’s local television broadcasting and digital media platform with stations that are geographically complementary to the Company’s operating base while presenting significant financial and operating synergies,” Nexstar said Tuesday of the deal it expects to complete late next year. The West Virginia stations in the deal include WBOY-TV Clarksburg, WOWK-TV Huntington, WTRF-TV Wheeling, WVNS-TV Lewisburg.

The FCC could encourage more auction participation by implementing procedures that “facilitate deferred tax treatment of reverse auction proceeds,” said “representatives of the commonly-owned licensees of commercial broadcast television stations concentrated in several of the largest” designated market areas, according to an ex parte filing by Wiley Rein broadcast attorney Ari Meltzer in docket 12-268. The representatives weren't identified in the filing under a Media Bureau rule that allows broadcast auction participants to meet with the FCC to discuss the auction without disclosing their identities. “Realistic” broadcaster participation could result in a high clearing target and limited impaired spectrum, the broadcast representatives said. Other broadcasters have been raising similar issues at the FCC and in interviews with us (see 1511130041).

The U.K.’s Digital TV Group will team with its counterpart, the German TV Platform, on a series of joint “plugfests” to test the interoperability of Ultra HD TVs and content “as new services develop,” the groups said in a Tuesday announcement. The first plugfest, scheduled for Dec. 8-9 in Berlin, “will examine the delivery and support of high dynamic range UHD, by connecting UHD displays and receivers together with sample content,” they said. Future plugfests will alternate between London and Berlin, “examining other facets of the UHD experience,” they said. Manufacturers that take part in the plugfests can find out how their products will perform with emerging Ultra HD services in Europe’s two largest TV markets, they said.

The FCC should approve the “Katrina Petition” and require broadcasters to provide emergency information in multiple languages “before, during, or after an emergency,” the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council said in meetings Tuesday with Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau Chief David Simpson, aides to Commissioners Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel, and an aide to Chairman Tom Wheeler, according to an ex parte filing posted online Tuesday in docket 04-296. The FCC should withdraw a draft order that would update state emergency alert systems with information about which EAS participants offer their information in multiple languages and instead “take meaningful steps to preserve the lives of multilingual Americans,” MMTC said. “If the Commission revisits this issue in light of these comments, it would adopt directives that more effectively protect individuals who are not conversant in English,” MMTC said. “Discussions are underway about MMTC potentially amending the Petition to address questions that the Commission has raised.”

Broadcasters should take advantage of the FCC's Nov. 20 tutorial on the pre-TV incentive auction process, Fletcher Heald said in a blog post Friday. The incentive auction is "new to the FCC and it's new to the rest of us," the post said. Broadcasters should "thoroughly work" through the tutorial and then attend the FCC's workshop on the matter, which was rescheduled to Dec. 8, the blog post said.

Media General will “engage in negotiations” with Nexstar but its board unanimously rejected Nexstar's initial, unsolicited purchase proposal, a Media General news release said Monday. “The Board believes the Proposal significantly undervalues Media General and its prospects.” The proposal “substantially discounts Media General’s standalone growth prospects, ignores the significant asset value embedded in Media General’s excess spectrum that can be monetized via the upcoming Broadcast Auctions, and does not reflect an equitable share of the synergies" of a Nexstar/Media General deal, it said. Media General will hold private negotiations with Nexstar but “there are no guarantees that these negotiations will result in a transaction with Nexstar,” the release said. The Media General board continues to recommend the Meredith transaction, the release said.

The 69 mutually exclusive Auction 83 noncommercial educational FM translator applicants have until Dec. 16 to file Form 349 FM translator applications, the FCC Media Bureau said in a public notice Monday. The FCC will use the NCE point system to compare and “tentatively select” applications from each group of mutually exclusive stations to receive the license for a translator, the PN said. The applications are mutually exclusive “only to other, pending NCE FM translator proposals filed in the Auction 83 Filing Window. As such, these applicants are ineligible to participate in Auction 83,” the PN said. The point system the FCC will use to decide among mutually exclusive NCE applicants is based on whether the applicant is a local entity, has diverse ownership, is involved with a statewide network providing content to local schools, and how large a coverage area and population served the translator would allow, the PN said.

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai hailed carriers AT&T, Boost Mobile, Sprint, T-Mobile and Virgin Mobile for their “move in a positive direction” to activate the FM chips in their smartphones, in remarks at the National Association of Farm Broadcasting convention Friday in Kansas City, Missouri. “I applaud all of these carriers for stepping up to the plate” on FM chip activations, he said. But Pai opposes government mandates on FM chip activations, he said. “I don’t believe that it is the place of the government to intervene here, especially given the robust competition we see among wireless carriers,” he said. “In February, I said that if there was consumer demand for activating FM chips -- and I believed that there was -- I was optimistic that we would continue to see progress on this issue as a result of commercial negotiations and competitive pressure in the private marketplace.” Recent developments (see 1508140064) “have only strengthened my optimism and belief that the private sector can and will resolve this issue,” he said.