Small and medium multichannel video programming distributors requested streamlined financial...

“to avoid the financial hardship that would otherwise be imposed if it were required to obtain sooner the necessary upgraded ad insertion equipment and purchase audio monitoring equipment” (http://xrl.us/bnqoes). Wire Tele-View Corp. in Pottsville, Pa., also requested a waiver (http://xrl.us/bnqodz), attributing its financial hardship to the “700 percent increase in non-regulated retransmission fees from local off-air networks” and the state of the economy in Schuylkill County, Pa. Agape Church in Little Rock, Ark., requested waivers for its three small broadcast stations. Due to legacy analog equipment, the stations “do not have current capabilities to send audio metadata to the ATSC encoders,” it said (http://xrl.us/bnqofg). The American Cable Association supports NCTA’s petition for reconsideration on implementation of the CALM Act, it said in comments in the same docket (http://xrl.us/bnqodi). In the petition filed this year, NCTA urged the FCC to limit the rules to commercial ads, clarify that a cable operator won’t be held liable when it has notified a network of its non-compliance and not to “prohibit cable operators from contacting program networks when performing spot checks” (http://xrl.us/bnoike). The commission finds no policy or legal reason to exempt commercial advertisements promoting TV programming, or promos, from the scope of its rules, ACA said. The commission should reverse its position “and grant NCTA’s request to exclude promos from being covered by the statute’s requirements,” it said. The recommended practice should only require MVPDs that implemented AC-3 technology “to pass through without alteration the dialnorm metadata in commercial advertisements inserted upstream by programmers.” MVPDs should be able to contact programmers while conducting spot checks, ACA said.