The extent of the incentive auction’s effect on low-power TV isn’t known, but after Thursday’s release of the closing and channel reassignment public notice (see 1704130056), industry officials were pessimistic. “There are a lot of people who are extremely disappointed in the outcome,” said Fletcher Heald broadcast attorney Peter Tannenwald Friday. LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition Director Mike Gravino sought legal action and outright resistance. “The auction winning bidders need to hear loud and clear that LPTV will NOT be moving when they want to start testing in a [partial economic area] PEA, but when we are ready,” said Gravino in an email titled “Resist the Repack!” The displacement of LPTV will affect minorities disproportionately in major markets, said Ravi Kapur, CEO of Diya TV, a network targeting Indian Americans. “The fallout from this is going to be massive.” Meanwhile, many experts aren't sure what the Dish and Comcast auction results say about those companies' plans.
The FCC is considered likely to grant Fox’s request for a temporary waiver of the newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rule despite objections raised by a number of public interest groups (see 1703090049), numerous broadcast attorneys told us. Fox wants the waiver to allow it to continue operating the New York Post and running TV stations in the same New York market while awaiting an FCC decision on petitions for reconsideration of the FCC’s 2014 quadrennial ownership review. In a joint opposition filing in docket 07-260 for Monday’s comment deadline, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, Free Press, the United Church of Christ Communication Office and Voice for New Jersey said the waiver is unjustified and granting a temporary waiver that's dependent on a pending reconsideration process would “violate long-standing, sensible Commission policy.”
FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn doesn’t support a proposal to eliminate the AM/FM subcaps that has recently been the focus of an industry push (see 1703020052), she told us Monday. “The Commission’s local radio ownership rule was designed to uphold the core principles of competition, localism and viewpoint diversity,” Clyburn said in an emailed statement responding to our question. “These values are at the heart of the Communications Act which is why I continue to believe we must preserve our media ownership rules.”
An item added to the FCC list of circulating proposed rules Friday appears to be a declaratory ruling on a petition requesting that broadcasters be allowed to satisfy equal employment opportunity requirements with postings only online. An FCC spokesman confirmed the petition for rulemaking "Seeking to Allow the Sole Use of Internet Sources for FCC EEO Recruitment Requirements, Declaratory Ruling,” refers to a petition requesting the rule change that was filed in December by Sun Valley Radio and Canyon Media (see 1612190062). "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. Currently, broadcasters must widely disseminate job postings, and can't advertise them only online or on their own airwaves, a broadcast attorney told us. Commissioner Mike O’Rielly repeatedly has endorsed loosening the rules.
Broadcaster opposition mounted last week to Prometheus Radio Project’s (PRP) request for a stay of upcoming FM translator siting rules (see 1704040046). NAB now seeks to kill it on procedural grounds, said an opposition filing posted by the FCC Friday. And two broadcast lawyers opposed it earlier last week.
A draft item set for April’s commissioners' meeting that would allow some public broadcasters to hold fundraisers for third-party nonprofits (see 1703300066) was enthusiastically supported by its original proponents, the National Religious Broadcasters. It likely won’t be welcomed by its longtime opponents in public media, according to FCC filings and interviews. “It would be a disservice to public broadcasters’ mission to become a fundraising outlet for others,” said Todd Gray of Gray Miller, who represents public broadcasters. The draft item is an outgrowth of an FCC policy that granted temporary waivers to public media stations to raise funds for disaster relief, NRB said. “We’ve seen how well these stations do in connecting those who want to give with charitable causes; we see a benefit in connecting them to everyday causes," said NRB Vice President-Government Relations Aaron Mercer.
Public media advocates, station managers and a Republican senator on the Appropriations Committee told us they believe the CPB will maintain its funding in the face of President Donald Trump’s FY 2018 budget proposal. A huge national campaign is drumming up support for meeting CPB’s funding request, including an online petition asking legislators to support public media that’s up to more than 250,000 signatures, said America’s Public Television Stations (APTS) President Patrick Butler. “I’m increasingly confident that we’ll be able to win this battle,” said Butler, conceding the struggle over the budget almost certainly will go on for months. Funding for public media has “strong bipartisan support” in Congress, said Rick Johnson, general manager of WGCU Fort Myers, Florida. “Though I would never want to take that for granted.”
The FCC's planned review of the national TV ownership cap could influence how broadcasters react to the expected restoration of the UHF discount, said Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker at a Media Institute lunch Monday. Commissioners tentatively are to vote April 20 on bringing back the discount (see 1703300066), Though analysts initially thought the ownership cap could be pushed high enough to make some very large combinations possible, Ryvicker said she no longer believes that's likely. Companies could begin announcing deals the day after the FCC’s April 20 meeting, Ryvicker said. Numerous large broadcast entities are expected to seek acquisitions, she said, including Cox, Tegna and Scripps. “Everybody’s a buyer,” Ryvicker said, though she said Tribune is an exception, and is seen as looking to sell. With the NAB Show the week after the April FCC meeting, more dealmaking than usual could happen there, she said. Though investors see ATSC 3.0 as a positive concept, there’s too much uncertainty about the future of the new standard for it to do much to move the needle on broadcast investment, Ryvicker told us. It’s not clear if plans for broadcasters to begin offering up wireless spectrum will materialize, she said. Though Ryvicker said the Wall Street view of broadcast regulation under FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has been “positive,” she said unrealistic expectations for the Trump administration's pro-business policies and the recent failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act made investors leery. Investors are anxious about the growth of streaming media hurting broadcasting, and about ratings showing general decline in TV viewership and increased time shifted viewing, she said. Broadcasting is considered dependent on live viewership, she said: “That’s why there’s a perception that broadcast is dying.” Though spending on political advertisements during the presidential campaign was down, Ryvicker expects those numbers to rebound in 2018, saying the low spending in 2016 was a onetime fluke. Recent negative attention about the placement of online ads could be a boon to broadcast advertising, she said. Total audience measurement for broadcast would help compete with pay-TV and online, Ryvicker said.
The FCC will vote whether to eliminate the UHF discount at commissioners' April 20 meeting, as expected (see 1703070055). They will take up two public media issues -- third-party fundraising, and reversing a rule approved under the previous FCC that would require public media board members to submit personal identification information, said the tentative agenda. Broadcasters anticipated UHF discount’s restoration since Ajit Pai took over the agency, and the item originally was expected in March (see 1703010074). In a blog post, Pai said one reason to restore the discount is that the way the FCC eliminated it is vulnerable to litigation, and he pledged to launch “a comprehensive review” of the national ownership cap “later this year.” The draft text of each item was released Thursday, in keeping with the chairman's transparency plans.
There are signs the FCC is more proactive about pirate radio enforcement, broadcast industry officials said in interviews. They didn’t cite examples, but broadcasters facing a high volume of pirate activity said their encounters with officials about unlicensed broadcasters have been more positive under the new administration. Enforcement officials are “taking a more proactive role” and the commission has undergone “an attitude change” toward pirate radio, said David Donovan, president of the New York State Broadcasters Association.