Comments on some channel substitution requests are due April 2, replies May 6, said Tuesday’s Federal Register. They include Gray Television’s request to shift WDTV Weston, West Virginia, from Channel 5 to 33 in docket 22-112, plus petitions from Scripps for stations in Montana: KBZK Bozeman from 27 to 13 in docket 22-114, KXLF-TV Butte from 5 to 15 in docket 22-115, KPAX–TV Missoula from 7 to 25 in docket 22-116, KTVH–DT Helena from 12 to 31 in docket 22-118, and KRTV Great Falls from 7 to 22 in docket 22-117.

News directors and “broadcasters on the sidelines” need to get involved now in ATSC 3.0-enhanced emergency alerts to prevent a government mandate, John Lawson, executive director of the Advanced Warning and Response Network Alliance, said on a webinar Tuesday hosted by Sinclair's One Media. That way, “even if someday the federal government steps in, at least it’ll be our idea,” Lawson said, comparing the possible future of advanced emergency information (AEI) to what happened with wireless emergency alerts. WEA rules have been “a long struggle” between industry and the government, and broadcasters need “a voluntary system,” Lawson said. He advocated for agreements between broadcasters and their local emergency managers to discuss the production and use of the more fulsome emergency information and media that could be utilized with 3.0. Recent FCC rulemakings and the Reliable Emergency Alert Distribution Improvement Act “revitalized” state emergency communications committees but not too much of the discussion is focused on older emergency information systems rather than the newer tech, Lawson said. The FCC has open proceedings on making the legacy emergency alert system more accessible and improving it (see 2112140062). Pete Sockett, Capitol Broadcasting director-engineering and operations, said there’s a great deal of misunderstanding about the difference between the EAS and the supplemental, more detailed emergency information that's the focus of discussions about AEI.

The FCC Media Bureau designated the license of a Tennessee AM station for hearing due to the owner’s conviction for tax fraud, said a hearing designation order (HDO) Monday. Joseph Amstrong, principal of Arm & Rage, which owns WJBE Powell, is a former Tennessee state legislator. He was convicted in 2017 on charges he didn’t include a $330,000 profit on his 2008 tax filings, money that he generated by buying cigarette tax stamps and selling them after the state increased the tax rate in a bill he voted for, according to the HDO and the Knoxville News Sentinel. “In light of Armstrong’s past willingness to conceal information from another federal agency in violation of the law, we are unable to conclude on the record before us that Armstrong’s criminal convictions are not disqualifying,” said the HDO. The Media Bureau said WJBE also late-filed ownership reports and issues/program lists, and was late reporting Armstrong’s conviction to the FCC. The late filings “heighten our concern as to whether we can rely upon A&R to provide complete and accurate information to the Commission.” Armstrong in the past touted WJBE as the area’s only black-owned station. WJBE’s call sign stands for “James Brown Enterprises” and the singer was a former owner of the station. Armstrong didn’t comment.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau on Monday sent the first batch of equal employment opportunity audit letters for 2022, said a public notice that day. Each year, about 5% of all radio and TV stations are selected for EEO audits.

NAB launched an on-air and digital ad campaign against legislation that would create a performance royalty for radio stations, said an NAB blog post and news release Monday. The campaign against the American Music Fairness Act (see 2202020070) will begin running “immediately” and calls for listeners to “urge Congress to stand up for local radio.” “We want to educate our audiences about the damage performance fee legislation would have on radio and our ability to serve tens of millions of Americans every day,” said NAB Radio Board Chair and Salem Media CEO David Santrella in the blog post. Proponents of the performance fee argued it would be negligible for all but the largest radio groups, and radio stations pay performance fees in most of the rest of the world. “We anticipate the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by longtime performance tax proponent Jerry Nadler (NY-10), will consider and most likely pass this bill out of committee in the coming weeks,” said the blog post. “We want to make sure the listeners who rely on local radio understand how this legislation would impact their communities.”

Streaming services should be defined as MVPDs, and TV broadcasters should be able to negotiate directly with them instead of relying on networks to do so, representatives for the affiliates group of each of the top four networks said in videoconference meetings with FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, Media Bureau Chief Holly Saurer, and Commissioner Brendan Carr Monday, according to ex parte filings in docket 14-261. Marketplace shifts over the past seven years have threatened advertising and retransmission consent, which the filing called TV broadcasting’s “key revenue streams.” Because the FCC doesn’t consider internet-based video services such as YouTube MVPDs and thus bound by transmission consent rules, “the Big Four networks control negotiations with virtual MVPDs. The Affiliated stations are at the mercy of agreements that they have no say in negotiating,” the filing said. The affiliate groups also targeted network-owned direct-to-consumer platforms such as Peacock, which “feature very desirable, unique content, and also frequently carry the same Network programming that, historically, had appeared exclusively on broadcast stations.” Local affiliates’ “loss of valuable exclusivity hinders their ability to negotiate fair compensation for retransmission of their signals,” the filing said. The affiliate groups said tech platforms should have to compensate local stations for news content, which they’re advocating on Capitol Hill. “Shifts in the video programming ecosystem have challenged local broadcasters in ways that could not have been anticipated in 2014,” when the FCC opened the docket on classifying online video distributors as MVPDs, the filing said.

Geotargeted radio delivered by originating content on FM boosters “could improve the economics for any size radio station as well as promote localism and other public interest benefits,” GeoBroadcast Solutions told FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr in a meeting Monday, said an ex parte filing in docket 20-401. Radio stations that deploy the tech could get increased rates and revenue, the filing said. Analyst firm BIA Advisory Services estimated overall revenue for radio would increase if every radio station adopted the tech, the filing said. A group of larger broadcasters including iHeartMedia and the NAB argued the targeted ads would lower rates for the entire radio industry (see 2202090047).

The FCC should examine whether smaller broadcasters should face the same regulatory “burdens” as bigger companies, FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington told the National Religious Broadcasters "Gathering of Christian Communicators" last week, said a news release from Simington’s office Tuesday. “Many broadcast rules apply identical burdens to organizations of 5 full-time staff, and of 500 full-time staff,” said the release. “I would support a fresh look at some of the Commission rules considered most burdensome to small, family-owned broadcast stations to see if public interest is served by their equal application to every broadcast organization.”

Cable groups and broadcasters are at odds over how FCC proposals loosening multicast rules for the ATSC 3.0 transition should restrict the number of multicast channels broadcasters can offer, according to reply comments filed in docket 16-142 by Monday’s deadline. The FCC “should rely on its predictive judgment about how reasonable actors motivated by financial gain could act in this undeveloped space,” said the American TV Alliance. ATVA wants the agency to limit broadcasters hosting each other in the transition to the number of multicast streams they have in ATSC 1.0. NAB said broadcasters should be limited to “carry only programming that they could carry on their own facilities as constrained by state-of-the-art technology.” Broadcast consortium BitPath suggested the “cable interests’ concerns can be fully addressed by plainly stating that no station may, through the hosting rules, end up with more capacity than it started with.” Broadcasters wishing to launch new multicast streams above their capacity by hosting them on other stations should be required to simulcast them in ATSC 3.0, said NCTA. The proceeding just codifies and streamlines procedures the FCC has been allowing for two years through grants of special temporary authority, said One Media. “The cable lobby has voiced phantom concerns that are aimed at slowing down or upending ATSC 3.0 deployments they view as a potential competitor to the pay-TV industry,” said NAB. “The routine grant of waivers by the FCC over the past several years to accomplish what the Second FNPRM proposes to codify has not strained cable capacity in any way,” said America’s Public Television Stations and PBS in a joint filing.

An initial status conference on the license proceeding for Snake River Radio (see 2202080071) will be held virtually March 31, said an order Monday from FCC Administrative Law Judge Jane Halprin. Snake River Radio’s KPCQ Chubbuck, Idaho, has been silent for 1,077 days since 2018, which the agency said is 80% of its license term.