Monty Tayloe

The FCC should reform the way it receives and processes indecency complaints, said several broadcasters, associations and other groups in replies to the commission’s public notice on proposed changes to its indecency policy and in follow-up interviews. Using a “community standard” for indecency is “inherently unreliable” when organizations “can send out an e-blast resulting in several thousand of its base submitting an electronic complaint to the FCC,” said the Writers Guild of America. A group that encourages members to file indecency complaints said otherwise. Every indecency complaint “comes from the affirmative action and efforts of an individual American citizen who enjoys full ownership of the broadcast airwaves and thus has a right to a say in how they are used,” said the Parents Television Council (PTC).

A draft rulemaking notice that could lead to elimination of the UHF TV ownership discount listed as on circulation at the FCC may partially be a reaction to a recent spate of broadcasting mergers, said broadcast attorneys in interviews Monday. They said the change in the value of UHF stations since the DTV transition also could be a reason for the FCC to nix the discount. With the Sinclair/Allbritton and Tribune/Local TV deals brushing against or even exceeding the 39 percent ownership cap without the discount, according to Free Press, the commission may be trying to eliminate the UHF discount in advance of ruling on those mergers, said Fletcher Heald broadcast attorney Peter Tannenwald.

CEA, cable operators, DBS providers and groups representing disabled consumers are clashing over how proposed accessibility rules for user interfaces and programming guides should be applied to set top boxes and other devices. The squabble played out in a series of ex parte filings in docket 12-108 related to the commission’s attempt to implement section 204 and 205 of the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA).

Dish Network refused Raycom’s offer of a temporary extension of their retransmission consent agreement that would have temporarily prevented a blackout, said Raycom Senior Vice President Jeff Rosser in an interview Thursday. Starting at just past midnight Thursday morning -- the end of the previous retrans agreement -- Raycom stopped allowing Dish to carry its broadcasts. Dish blamed Raycom for the blackout. “Unfortunately, the broadcaster has not been willing to pursue an agreement that would have avoided this disruption of service to our customers and Raycom viewers,” said Dish in a news release Thursday. Dish didn’t comment on the proposed extension.

Comcast’s focus on providing customers with the fastest Internet speeds is behind the company’s growth, said CEO Brian Roberts on its Q2 call Wednesday. Comcast’s combined subscribers increased by 189,000 in Q2 to 50.5 million, a 37 percent increase in net additions compared to 2012’s Q2. That was spurred by broadband customers and an increase in voice subscribers, Comcast said. Revenue from broadband also increased by 8 percent to $2.586 billion, which along with increases in business services and video led to a 5.8 percent increase in revenue from Comcast’s cable division to $10.5 billion. “The more the consumer desires speed, the better it is for our company,” said Roberts.

Seven percent of American TV homes “rely solely on an antenna for their television programming,” said a study released Tuesday by CEA (http://bit.ly/14gwz2j). “This study provides yet another reason why it is time for broadcast spectrum to be reallocated, and quickly,” said President Gary Shapiro in a release. The study, U.S. Household Television Usage Update, is a follow-up to a 2010 CEA report that showed 8 percent of TV households relying solely on an antenna. Consumers “have moved away in droves from traditional broadcast television thanks to a surge in programming alternatives” available over broadband, said Shapiro. “According to historical CEA research, there has been a gradual decline in the percentage of TV households using antennas since 2005,” said the study. CEA’s findings “strain the bounds of credibility,” said NAB in an emailed response. An NAB spokesman attacked the study for not being conducted independently, and for its small sample size: There were 1,009 adults interviewed over the phone, CEA said. CEA analyst Kevin Tillmann, who worked on the study, called NAB’s comments “wildly inaccurate” in an email. The telephone survey was conducted by Opinion Research Corp., not CEA staff, he said. NAB pointed to a larger study released last month by market researcher GfK which showed an increase in broadcast-only homes in 2013 to 19.3 percent of TV households (CD June 21 p20). “We're confident that GfK’s research is far more credible than that of a trade association with a track record of anti-broadcasting bias,” said the NAB spokesman. CEA’s report also points out that a 2012 Nielsen study showed 9 percent of households as broadcast only, similar to CEA’s figure. There was a 5 percentage point decrease from 2010 to 83 percent in people who get TV from cable, satellite or fiber. “The use of non-TV consumer electronics devices (such as laptops, desktops, tablets and smartphones) in the home to consume content is likely affecting pay-TV subscriptions,” said CEA. The association also pinned that decline on “increasingly accessible Internet sourced television programming.” It found that 28 percent of U.S. TV households receive programming on their TVs through the Internet, and 4 percent of TV households report using the Internet exclusively as their source of television programming for their TVs. The FCC also found increased penetration of Internet connected TVs in its recent Video Competition Report (CD July 23 p7). “This is why Congress had it right when they authorized the FCC to hold voluntary broadcast spectrum incentive auctions to reallocate broadcast television spectrum to greater uses, like wireless broadband,” said Shapiro, referring to CEA’s findings.

Sinclair Broadcast Group will use shared service agreements and joint sales agreements to comply with FCC ownership rules in its $985 million buy of seven Allbritton TV stations, Sinclair said Monday. Along with seven ABC affiliates covering 4.9 percent of U.S. households, Sinclair will acquire Allbritton’s D.C.-area 24-hour local news cable channel, NewsChannel 8. The transaction will create “synergies,” Sinclair said. Free Press attacked Sinclair’s “rapid expansion.” “The FCC needs to scrutinize these proposed deals and stop allowing covert consolidation through shared services agreements that allow Sinclair to run two or even three stations in a single market,” said Free Press President Craig Aaron in a press release Monday.

The FCC will likely approve the proposed $1.5 billion merger between Gannett and Belo despite petitions to deny the transaction filed Wednesday by the American Cable Association, Time Warner Cable, DirecTV and multiple public interest groups, said several industry observers in interviews Thursday. “It’s unlikely that the petitions to deny would result in the commission not approving the transaction,” said former FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, now a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute.

The proposal to require multichannel video programming distributors to provide emergency video description over mobile devices isn’t based on a congressional mandate, said DirecTV. In the CVAA, Congress told the FCC to implement emergency video description for TV, and to study providing the service over IP, DirecTV said. “The juxtaposition of an explicit grant of authority with respect to closed captioning of programming delivered via IP and the mere requirement for a study of the issues potentially relevant to providing video description via IP is especially telling.” DirecTV referenced MPAA v. FCC, where rulemakings were struck down under similar circumstances.

Public interest groups clashed with trade associations and media owners over cross-ownership rules in comments filed in docket 09-182 on the Minority Media & Telecommunications Council’s cross-ownership impact study. Monday was the filing deadline for comments on Impact of Cross Media Ownership on Minority/Women Owned Broadcast Stations, which was released in May (CD May 31 p1). “The MMTC Study is not adequate to support the conclusion that any cross-ownership rules should be changed in this proceeding,” said the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters in its comments. Groups such as NABOB and Free Press attacked the study for not being sufficiently quantitative and having a small sample size, while trade associations and others pointed to what they said is a lack of evidence supporting cross-ownership rules and urged the FCC to change them. “The record in fact supports broader reform of the broadcast ownership rules, including the local television and local radio rules, to allow broadcasters to achieve economies of scale and scope and enhance their service to the public,” said NAB.