The FCC's order approving Nexstar’s buy of Tribune with a 2-2 party line split could have consequences for advocacy groups seeking to weigh in on future FCC decisions, said dissents from Commissioners Geoffrey Starks and Jessica Rosenworcel. Many lawyers agreed.
Broadcasters and ATSC 3.0 advocates are focused on establishing a “beachhead” in the home and in TVs rather than on mobile uses or chips in handsets, said Pearl TV Managing Director Anne Schelle at an FCBA event Tuesday. Consortiums Pearl and Spectrum Co see 3.0 consumer devices rolling out in 2020, she said.
The time is right for more broadcast TV consolidation, broadcasters, analysts and media brokers said in recent interviews, but the specific nature of those deals isn’t known. It's not clear what will follow the expected closing of Nexstar's buy of Tribune (see 1909040035), and Apollo Global Management's buy of Cox's broadcast stations, which isn’t expected to face roadblocks.
FCC Democrats have been given about a week to vote on an order to approve the Nexstar/Tribune deal, an FCC official told us. The chairman’s office had sought to approve the deal sooner on delegated authority but is holding off at the Democrats' request. The item is expected to be approved 3-2 on circulation by next week or shortly afterward, FCC and industry officials said. The order doesn’t contain explicit conditions but may involve concessions from Nexstar related to the top-four duopoly rule, an FCC official said.
The Incentive Auction Task Force and Media Bureau are extending from Friday until Sept. 11 the completion date of phase 5 of the post-incentive auction repacking because of Hurricane Dorian, said a public notice Tuesday. The extension is to “assure that viewers will not be required to rescan their TVs during this period and risk missing important emergency news and information,” said the PN. “This extension will permit each station to determine the appropriate transition timing for its station and its viewers based on the developing conditions in its market.” Stations in areas not affected by the storm are encouraged to continue transitions on the original schedule, the PN said. “We will continue to work with individual stations, including those impacted by Hurricane Dorian, on a case-by-case basis." The FCC has been “working throughout the weekend” on preparations for Hurricane Dorian, said Chairman Ajit Pai Monday. It's working with other agencies, communications providers and power companies to encourage coordinated service restoration efforts “making sure they implement lessons learned from Hurricane Michael,” Pai said. After that storm, Pai urged action on wireless resiliency and service losses due to utility work (see 1905210035). Commission staffers were deployed to survey RF spectrum in areas projected to be hit by Dorian, to help identify impacts and outages, Pai said. The agency activated the disaster information reporting system for several Florida counties and has staff on hand 24 hours a day to assist first responders and communications providers, Pai said. An agency webpage acts as a hub for Dorian-related information. Storm damage to 34 Florida counties was described as “minimal” in a Tuesday morning DIRS report. No public safety answering points were reported down or rerouted, and 0.2 percent of cell sites were out of service in the affected area. The report listed 6,884 cable and wireline subscribers as out of service, and no broadcast stations were reported off-air.
The FCC is expected to seek further comment on proposals to relax rules requiring broadcasters advertise job applications in local newspapers as part of the agency’s Sept. 26 agenda, industry and agency officials told us Tuesday. The FCC sought comment in 2017 on rule changes that would allow broadcasters to replace the newspaper ads with on-air or online notices (see 1710240062). The media modernization proposal never progressed to an order. The agency will seek more-granular, specific comments this time, an industry official said.
The FCC hasn’t determined the exact method it will use to allocate repacking reimbursement funds to low-power TV stations, said Media Bureau Chief Engineer Jeff Neumann Wednesday during a webinar on the reimbursement process for LPTV, translator and FM stations affected by the repacking. Each station in the full-power and Class A TV station repacking process was initially allotted the same percentage of their estimated costs, but it’s not clear if that method will be used for LPTV, Neumann said. Media Bureau and Incentive Auction Task Force (IATF) officials didn’t provide specifics about when reimbursement funds will start going out. Neumann said it will be “well after” the Oct. 15 deadline for eligible stations to submit reimbursement forms and initial expenses.
An order on 2019 regulatory fees is expected to be issued soon and will include a Further NPRM on the way the FCC calculates regulatory fees, agency and industry officials told us. Since the fees must be collected before the fiscal year end Sept. 30, the FNPRM is expected to gather a record that could be applied to future regulatory fees, rather than the 2019 fee collection. Though the draft order makes some concessions to broadcaster requests, it's expected to closely resemble the previously released NPRM, FCC officials said. The fee order isn’t expected to be controversial among commissioners.
An item on Nexstar listed by the FCC as being on circulation doesn’t directly relate to the company's buying Tribune, agency officials told us last week. Listed as “Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc., Application for Renewal of Licenses of Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. and Compliance with the Children's Television Act,” the item involves renewal of the broadcaster's licenses, the officials said. It isn’t uncommon for the agency to “clear the decks” of older, unresolved matters before approving a deal, the officials said. DOJ approved most of the Nexstar/Tribune divestitures earlier this month. The broadcaster is seen likely to divest a station in the lone market flagged by antitrust authorities (see 1908010035). It’s possible that an order approving the deal wouldn’t be circulated at all but approved at the bureau level on delegated authority, the officials said. Nexstar didn’t comment Friday.
NAB and several large radio groups defended an FM translator interference order, in filings in docket 18-119 posted Friday opposing petitions for reconsideration by the LPFM Coalition, Skywave Consulting and several radio licensees (see 1907290064). The FCC “was on solid empirical ground” in deciding the 45 dBu contour limit and other policies for the revamped translator interference rules, said iHeart, Entercom, Cox, Neuhoff, Radio One and Beasley. Media Alliance supported of the LPFM Coalition’s recon petition, saying the revamped rules violate “citizen rights to petition a government agency for redress.”