FCC new foreign ownership policies “reverse the presumption” that led to Pandora’s problems with the foreign ownership rules, Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford said in a blog post Monday. “Rather than assuming that there was a compliance issue because a company cannot prove that its foreign ownership was less than 25%, the FCC will now conclude that there is an issue only where a company” knows that it has a foreign ownership compliance problem, Oxenford said. Pandora had to seek a declaratory ruling to buy a radio station because some investors in the publicly traded company couldn’t be identified under SEC rules. “The bottom line is that the FCC is moving toward a system of assessing foreign ownership more like that which it uses for non-broadcast services -- one where foreign investment is more normalized and available to bring capital into the broadcast marketplace,” Oxenford said. Commissioners OK'd the foreign ownership rules at their Thursday meeting (see 1609290050).

Scripps is “disappointed” the transparency groups that filed 16 complaints against its WCPO-TV Cincinnati (see 1609260077) over political advertising filing rule violations “did not first contact the station,” the company said in a news release. “Had they done so, the station would have worked with them to ensure that all appropriate information was made available to the public.” Scripps agreed the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, Sunlight Foundation and Benton Foundation found some “areas where the station's filings could have been more descriptive” and said it “made appropriate amendments” to its file. But the broadcaster also said some of the complaints “inaccurately allege that ad scheduling and other required information was missing, when in fact the information is listed in the file.” In response to a request from the transparency groups for the FCC to expedite the process (see 1609290063), a Scripps spokeswoman told us the company agreed to respond to the complaints by Oct. 14 instead of the initial Oct. 28 deadline offered by the FCC.

The parties that have brought 16 complaints against Scripps' WCPO-TV Cincinnati on alleged incomplete or inaccurate information filings on buyers of political ads (see 1609260077) are demanding the FCC Media Bureau speed up its handling of the complaint. In a letter Thursday to the bureau, Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, Sunlight Foundation and Benton Foundation said the FCC should tell Scripps to respond to the complaint by Wednesday, instead of the Oct. 28 deadline the bureau gave. The bureau's Policy Division "frequently and publicly brags that it handles election-related matters on an extremely expedited basis," the complainants said. "That appears to be the case when the parties are advertisers and broadcast licensees, but not when affected parties are journalists and other members of the public." An Oct. 28 deadline means the pleadings cycle would wrap up Nov. 17, nine days after the election, they said: "That schedule is nothing less than an abandonment of your duty to serve the public interest." The FCC and Scripps didn't comment.

ATSC’s Technology Group 3 for the second time delayed picking a winning high-dynamic-range technology for ATSC 3.0 for two months by extending the candidate standard period on the A/341 ATSC 3.0 video document to Nov. 30, ATSC President Mark Richer confirmed in a Thursday email. “I am hopeful that TG3 will approve a ballot to elevate A/341 to Proposed Standard during its meeting on November 17th,” Richer told us. He gave no explanation for the latest delay in choosing an HDR system for ATSC 3.0, which was to have been completed July 31 before being delayed to Sept. 30 because ATSC 3.0's framers wanted to “get it done right,” they said in June (see 1606160052). The delays on HDR are reminiscent of the contentious debate within ATSC to choose a winning audio codec for ATSC 3.0, which resulted in a monthslong impasse before ATSC 3.0's framers, in a compromise, settled on Dolby AC-4 for North America, MPEG-H for South Korea (see 1604210053).

FCC members upheld a pair of challenged Media Bureau decisions. In a memorandum opinion and order Wednesday, the commissioners rejected a 2012 petition for reconsideration by Powell Meredith Communications, that being the one of a series of pleadings by PMC regarding a 2007 reversal by the bureau of its grant of an application of a displacement application by KBFY-LP Fortuna, Arizona. In the order, the FCC said PMC would have had to cease operations on channel 53 in 2011 anyway, which all low-power TV stations operating on out-of-core channels 52-69 had to do at the end of that year. In a separate order Wednesday, commissioners dismissed a pair of applications for review by David Schum of a denial of his petition for reconsideration of 2015 and 16 bureau decisions on transfer of radio station licenses.

The FCC received 22,000 reports from emergency alert system participants on the results of Wednesday’s second nationwide test of the EAS (see 1609280074), said Public Safety Bureau Chief David Simpson during a news conference Thursday. The FCC and Federal Emergency Management Agency are still compiling the results, Simpson said. He declined to say this week’s test had gone better than its 2011 predecessor, but he credited the lessons learned from that test with helping this version. Asked about the success of bilingual alerts in English and Spanish that were tried during the test, Simpson confirmed that some alerts had gone out in Spanish, though some Spanish-language stations had to broadcast in English because of a quirk of the alerting rules and the way the system functions. “That is exactly the kind of thing we wanted to test,” he said.

Wednesday's nationwide test of the emergency alert system (EAS) will “be an opportunity to assess the readiness of America’s core public alert and warning infrastructure,” said Public Safety Bureau Deputy Chief Lisa Fowlkes in a blog post Monday. The test is set for 2:20 p.m. EDT, and will include bilingual alerts, a new nationwide location code and a new test alert code (see 1609260079). “The rapid dissemination of authoritative information can save lives,” the blog post said: State and local emergency planners should use the occasion of the nationwide test to ensure that their local government agencies are familiar with EAS, that 911 call centers are included in their alerting plans, and that they are familiar with their state's emergency communications coordinator. “We encourage all stakeholders to stay informed and involved in the future of alerting,” Fowlkes said. Meanwhile, the Public Safety Bureau denied a request from EAS equipment manufacturer Gorman-Redlich for a waiver from rules requiring stations to upgrade their equipment to be able to broadcast the new EAS nationwide location code, said an order in docket 15-94 released Tuesday. Gorman-Redlich argued “certain manufacturers” are unable to upgrade their equipment, and doing so would be a financial burden to broadcasters. Gorman-Redlich wasn't specific enough about the costs that would be incurred and why the equipment couldn't be upgraded, and its waiver request was so broad it would have covered most radio stations in the country, the order said.

A proposed new class of C4 FM stations backed by FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai could affect FM translators and low-power FM stations, said Wilkinson Barker broadcast lawyer David Oxenford in a blog post Monday. “Upgrades by Class A stations to Class C4 could cause interference to the existing translators and LPFMs, perhaps requiring these secondary stations to have to change frequency.” Pai's office said the proposal would protect the FM translators granted to AM stations as part of the FCC AM revitalization effort (see 1609230067). If the proposal advances, the agency “would be faced with the need to weigh the benefits of the upgrades that some stations could enjoy against the limits on translators and other FM upgrades that could be precluded,” Oxenford said. “We’ll see if anything happens on this proposal in the waning days of the current FCC administration.”

The FCC should grant Nexstar's request for a waiver to allow its deal to buy Media General to be approved during the incentive auction (see 1609220035), said the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters and Heartland Media letters posted in docket 16-57 Friday. “Extended delay harms all parties to the transaction by leading to increased costs of financing,” said Heartland, which is to buy some of the stations being divested as part of the transaction. NABOB supports the waiver because it will aid the African American-owned Bayou City Broadcasting, which is also buying divestitures from the deal.

Sinclair Chief Financial Officer Chris Ripley told an investor conference that ATSC 3.0 is “on track” to be approved by the FCC at the beginning of next year, Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker emailed investors. Ripley said Sinclair retracted its predictions about political advertising revenue (see 1609210075) due to a “lack of visibility,” Ryvicker said. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's fundraising efforts are late, though Ryvicker said it's possible he could make up for lost time: “It sounds to us like the door is open to maybe meeting the old political Q4 numbers, but again there is no visibility.”