New NAB President Curtis LeGeyt took aim at tech companies in his first blog post from the top seat. “With their dominance of the online advertising marketplace and opaque use of algorithms, Big Tech giants are threatening Americans’ access to quality local journalism,” he wrote Thursday. LeGeyt said broadcasters need “a level playing field” to compete for ad dollars with tech companies and to be compensated when broadcast content is accessed through online platforms. Congress and the FCC should enact policies to preserve broadcasting as a source of more reliable journalism than “the misinformation running rampant on social media,” LeGeyt said.

The full FCC denied Schwab Multimedia's appeal of a Media Bureau decision to deny Schwab a construction permit extension for KWIF(AM) Culver City, California, said an order in Thursday’s Daily Digest. Schwab argued construction was impeded by COVID-19 and more extensions should have been granted, but the FCC said in the order that Schwab didn’t build out the station because it lost permission to build on the site. “Accordingly, we reject Schwab’s allegation that the Bureau erred in not granting tolling based on other causes, such as COVID,” the order said. Schwab’s construction permit deadline was originally November 2019, but the company was granted several extensions, including one in March 2020 based on Schwab’s contention that COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders made it impossible to continue work. In September, the bureau denied an additional extension and found “no evidence of a causal connection between Schwab’s claimed continued COVID-related impediments and its failure to construct.” In October, Schwab told the bureau it had lost the landlord’s permission to construct on the site. Schwab also didn’t provide sufficient evidence that COVID restrictions prevented construction, and late-filed evidence that construction was occurring, the order said. “Permittees that seek additional construction time following a disaster must establish a material nexus between the disaster and failure to construct,” the order said.

The Radio Music License Committee (RMLC) and Global Music Rights (GMR) reached an agreement that could end long-running RMLC-GMR lawsuits over rights compensation, the entities said in a joint letter Wednesday: “The parties have reached this conditional settlement after more than five years of dueling litigations and great cost to both sides, in terms of both time and money.” The settlement requires GMR to offer commercial radio stations a “negotiated, long term license agreement” that begins April 1. The settlement will be finalized only if a sufficient number of radio stations agree by Jan. 31 to opt in, the letter said. If the settlement is successful, “it will ... give radio stations the opportunity to perform GMR works for several years with rate certainty,” the letter said. If not enough radio stations agree, “litigation will continue.” GMR “has not made any commitment to offer any other license to radio stations after the current interim license expires on March 31, 2022,” the letter said. Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford told us he couldn’t comment on the specifics of the settlement or say whether broadcasters should opt in, but that rate certainty would be a positive development for most broadcasters. One potential hiccup for broadcasters is that there’s no indication the settlement would provide future oversight for GMR similar to the covenants for other music rights organizations, he said.

There were 33,467 broadcast stations in the U.S. Dec. 31, the FCC said in a quarterly count released Tuesday. That’s down nearly 100 from the 33,564 listed in the December 2020 count, apparently mostly from the ranks of radio stations. The 2021 listing shows 1,758 full-power TV stations -- unchanged from December 2020 -- and 15,389 full-power radio stations, 56 fewer than the previous year. Low-power FMs also decreased from 2,136 in 2020 to 2,069 in 2021. Low-power TV stations and Class A's went down as well, from 2,399 to 2,310. The number of translator stations increased year over year, from 11,826 to 11,941.

There's “no basis” for suspending the FCC’s “targeted, straightforward” foreign sponsorship disclosure rules, the agency told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Monday in docket 21-1171 in response to a stay request from the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters and the Multimedia, Telecom and Internet Council (see 2112220048). The rule is “narrowly tailored,” doesn’t cause harm to broadcasters and imposes only “a limited duty to name check two government websites” to determine if a lessor is a foreign-sponsored entity, the agency said. The FCC countered broadcaster arguments that the rule solves a nonexistent problem. “An agency need not suffer the flood before building the levee,” the FCC said. Since the rule is intended to address undisclosed governmental sponsorship, the few previous incidents may be “the tip of the iceberg,” the agency said. The FCC also dismissed broadcaster claims that the rule violates the First Amendment. The rule is within the agency’s authority because it's content neutral and “is a reasonable condition on the privilege of broadcasting over the nation’s limited airwaves,” the agency said.

New NAB President Curtis LeGeyt took the group's reins Monday, said a news release that day (see 2111100073). Former President Gordon Smith has “transitioned to an advisory and advocacy role,” it said. Under LeGeyt, current Executive Vice President-Public Affairs Michelle Lehman will also be his chief of staff while retaining her current role, and Lesley Pena, formerly executive assistant to LeGeyt, will be deputy chief of staff. Both are newly created positions. "Chief legal officer" has also been added to the title of Rick Kaplan, who remains executive vice president-legal and regulatory affairs.

The Evoca-branded pay-TV service using ATSC 3.0 entered its fourth market Thursday when it lit up Idaho's KVUI and KPIF, both Pocatello, emailed a spokesperson. Parent company Edge Networks launched Evoca in Boise in August 2020 (see 2008210021). It’s now also available in Phoenix and Colorado Springs.

The Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the U.S. Telecommunications Services Sector doesn’t object to Univision’s request for a foreign-ownership declaratory ruling (see 2110050053), said an NTIA letter posted in FCC docket 21-321 Monday. Univision is seeking FCC permission to be more than 25% foreign owned, to allow investors SoftBank and Liberty Global to have voting interests above 5% (see 2107210046).

The FCC Media Bureau proposed a $17,500 penalty for Birach Broadcasting for public file violations and unauthorized silences at KTUV(AM) Little Rock and its FM translator K260DT Little Rock, said a notice of apparent liability and order Monday. The bureau said Birach requested special temporary authority for the stations only after complaints were filed with the agency, and KTUV’s online public files weren’t properly maintained. Birach also certified in a renewal application filed before the stations went silent that they were still broadcasting. Since the application was pending when the stations went dark, Birach was “subject to a continuing obligation to ensure the accuracy of the Application,” and should have amended it when the facts changed, the NAL said. The bureau said it will grant Birach’s renewal applications for the stations on the conclusion of the forfeiture proceeding, conditional on Birach submitting a report to the bureau showing online public file compliance. A similar penalty was proposed in 2018 for another Birach station over unauthorized silence (see 1812210060).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied low-power TV broadcaster Michael Karr’s petition for review of the FCC’s denial of his attempts to have WVUX-LD Fairmont, West Virginia, carried by satellite MVPDs, said an unpublished order in docket 20-1288 Wednesday. Must-carry rules that apply to cable providers don’t apply to satellite carriage, it said: “His low power station is treated the same as all other low power stations with respect to satellite carriage.”