Nexstar maintained through December that a waiver that would allow it to complete its $4.6 billion purchase of Media General despite the ongoing incentive auction (see 1611300064) was expected to be granted in 2016. It wasn't issued. Broadcast attorneys and pay-TV officials told us the waiver’s delay could be blamed on a range of explanations from retransmission consent negotiations to the progress of the incentive auction, and some believe the waiver request could soon be granted. There have been a number of carriage blackouts around New Year's day (see 1701030046).
An ownership dispute involving another Entercom station entitles Edward Stoltz to be a party in the FCC proceeding (see 1610280058) on Entercom's KDND(FM) Sacramento license renewal application, which the FCC designated for hearing over a 2007 radio contest that led to the death of a listener, Stolz said in opposition filings posted in docket 16-357 Wednesday. Set to be heard by Administrative Law Judge Richard Sippel in July, the case has entered its discovery phase, according to filings with the FCC. “Entercom argues that Stolz engages in a ‘twisted chain of logic,’” Stolz said in his filings appealing his exclusion from the case by the FCC. “This is comically ironic, since Entercom is the twisted party here,” Stolz said.
The FCC's 2016 nationwide test of the emergency alert system showed the system to be “significantly improved” from the 2011 nationwide test, said a preliminary report on the test released Wednesday by the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau. “The Nationwide EAS Test was successful,” said the bureau. “Initial test data indicates that the vast majority of EAS Participants successfully received and retransmitted the National Periodic Test (NPT) code that was used for the test.”
Many FCC staffers are “unsure what the future may bring,” with the agency's upcoming transition to a new Trump administration, Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said Dec. 15 at the close of the final commissioners' meeting during the Obama administration (see 1612150034). The sentiments were echoed in recent interviews with an official at the agency's union and current and former commission officials. Separately, former FCC employees from the last Republican administration under then-Chairman Kevin Martin are being interviewed for jobs at the agency by the Trump transition team, said a commission official.
The FCC signed a lease for its new headquarters at Sentinel Square III at 45 L St. NE, a commission spokesman told us Tuesday. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims denied last week a motion for special relief and a temporary restraining order filed by the FCC's current landlord Republic Properties affiliate Parcel 49C that would have prevented the General Services Administration from awarding the bid, according to court documents. No specific timeline for the move is available, the spokesman told us, though the FCC's lease on the current Portals building expires in October.
A petition proposing relaxing equal employment opportunity rules to allow broadcasters to satisfy EEO requirements with online job postings is likely to find favor in the upcoming FCC but could face public interest pushback, several broadcast attorneys told us. Filed last week by Sun Valley Radio and Canyon Media Corp. and put out for comment Friday, the petition says the internet is now the primary means of searching for job postings and rules that don't recognize that are outdated. “The daily newspaper, previously cited by the FCC as the presumptive way to reach all groups within a community, now pales in its reach within the community compared to the Internet,” said the petition. Comments are due Jan. 30 (see 1612150073), putting any potential NPRM well into the next administration.
The FCC Wednesday pulled a draft emergency alert system order from the next day's commissioners' meeting agenda, after industry and agency officials said it was controversial. Five other agenda items also were pulled, though four were adopted on circulation.
The current average price per MHz pop in the incentive auction below the threshold needed to trigger the final stage rule won't lead to a failed auction, attorneys following the process said in interviews Monday. It may mean the auction is less likely to close in the current Stage 4 (see 1612050062) than is commonly thought, they said. To trigger the final stage rule, the average auction price this stage must reach $1.25 per MHz POP for the most valuable spectrum. When the reverse auction starts Tuesday (see 1612090028), the price will be a fraction under $1.22 per MHz pop, said the public notice announcing Stage 4.
Incoming President Donald Trump's FCC isn't seen as more likely to pursue broadcast indecency enforcement than past commissions, and cleaning up TV content isn't seen as a high priority for the incoming administration, anti-indecency consumer groups and industry lawyers told us. The president-elect likely gives little thought to broadcast indecency, said Parents Television Council President Tim Winter and Patrick Trueman, president of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (formerly Morality in Media). “What matters is where it is on the chairman's agenda,” said Trueman. “We'll see who's going to head the commission.”
The incentive auction's slipping into latter stages could make the post-auction repacking less damaging to low-power TV, but a GAO report issued last week shows broadcasters are pessimistic about the fate of the LPTV industry and doubtful of FCC efforts to preserve it (see 1612050062). The band plan for Stage 4 of the incentive auction doesn't reserve as much space for guard bands, making it easier for stations to be repacked and thus leaving more room for low-powers, emailed LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition Director Mike Gravino. “We predict most all licensed LPTV and Translators will find a new channel.”