The FCC Enforcement Bureau issued a notice of violation Thursday against Bestov Broadcasting for its station WIAC (AM) San Juan, Puerto Rico, for operating at reduced power and with an unauthorized setup. The station is authorized to operate with a directional antenna pattern using a two-tower array, but in June, EB field agents found the station operating with a single tower with a nondirectional pattern and reduced power. Bestov has 20 days to respond to the bureau, said the notice, which appeared in the Daily Digest.
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez condemned the agency’s investigations of PBS and NPR stations Wednesday in a release detailing her visit to public media broadcaster WHYY in Philadelphia last week. WHYY has PBS and NPR affiliate stations. “Baseless attacks on public media threaten to create a new kind of news desert -- one where communities can’t access the local critical information they need,” Gomez said. “The FCC must prioritize protecting and expanding the public’s access to timely, accurate news, free from political interference.” Regulators' decisions “have real consequences for communities that rely on local news stations for critical information,” she said. The release said the visit is part of Gomez's effort to engage with local broadcasters. “Through these visits, Commissioner Gomez is also drawing attention to how unfounded attacks on public media can disrupt the distribution of local news and emergency information,” it said. The FCC didn’t comment.
President Donald Trump blasted CBS' 60 Minutes in a social media post Sunday over its reporting, repeating his call for CBS to lose its “license” and saying he hopes FCC Chairman Brendan Carr will punish the network. The FCC doesn't license broadcast networks or TV programs. The post also mentioned Trump’s ongoing, private lawsuit against the network.
The FCC Media Bureau has approved another TV deal that involves a top-four duopoly, according to an order in Friday’s Daily Digest. The deal involves Marquee Broadcasting’s proposed purchase from Imagicomm of KIEM-TV Eureka, California (NBC), and low-power KVIQ-LD Eureka (CBS). “The evidence in the record demonstrates that splitting up the two top-four network affiliations would likely lead to a reduction in network programming and local news in the Eureka [designated market area], which would not serve the public interest,” the order said. Although the top-four prohibition historically hasn’t applied to LPTV stations, the FCC’s 2018 quadrennial review order extended it to those stations and multicast streams. Oral argument in the broadcaster legal challenge of that order was held in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last month (see 2503190064). The bureau approved another top-four deal by Gray Media earlier this year (see 2503120066), and media brokers told us they expect to see an increase in such deals being proposed since the agency now seems more open to them.
The Las Vegas-based NAB Show 2025 saw 55,000 attendees, NAB said in a release Wednesday, the event’s last day. That's roughly 8,000 below NAB's projection of 63,000 and about 6,000 fewer than the 61,000 who attended the 2024 show. The 2023 show was the best attended since the pandemic forced the 2020 and 2021 shows to be canceled, drawing more than 65,000 attendees. The 2019 event, the last before the pandemic, attracted more than 91,000 people. This year, 26% of the attendees were international, and 53% were first-time attendees, NAB said.
A broadcaster accused by the FCC Enforcement Bureau of engaging in a 2010 sham transfer of stations to his niece was assisting her with the day-to-day operations of the stations after the sale in accordance with FCC rules, said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 23-267 from broadcast station owner Antonio Cesar Guel (see 2502250064). “It was quite natural, and completely expected, that [Guel’s niece, Jennifer Juarez] often, and repeatedly, would rely upon Mr. Guel’s past experience in conjunction with the operation of the Stations,” the one filing said. That “does not equate” to impermissible control. In questioning witnesses in the case, the EB repeatedly confused being in charge of day-to-day operations, such as engineering matters, and being in charge of all operations, said Guel’s filing. All the testimony cited by the EB as proof that Guel remained in charge of the stations actually shows only that he was in charge of day-to-day operations -- “an involvement which specifically is permitted under FCC policies and which is not a matter under scrutiny in this proceeding,” the filing said.
The FCC is required by legal precedent to provide notice of redefined terms in regulations, even if that new definition is only in the preamble of the final rule, said NAB in a supplemental filing Wednesday in its case challenging the FCC’s foreign-sponsored content ID rules in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. During oral argument Monday, D.C. Circuit Judge Gregory Katsas questioned whether the FCC’s broadening of the definition of a “lease” of TV station airtime in the rule's preamble was bound by notice-and-comment requirements (see 2504070019). NAB’s challenge to the order is in part based on arguments that the FCC didn’t sufficiently provide notice of plans to widen the definition to include political issue ads and public service announcements. Even if the court deemed the preamble definition of "lease" exempt from notice and comment, it would still be subject to legal challenges because it's “final agency action representing the consummation of agency decision-making and [has] pragmatic legal consequences for licensees,” NAB said.
In an interview last week, Sinclair Senior Vice President-Advanced Technology Mark Aitken said 5G broadcast is misleading marketing because the technology is based on 4G LTE (see 2504030053).
Comments are due May 7, replies June 6, on NAB's February petition seeking a nationwide timeline for the ATSC 3.0 transition (see 2502260051), the FCC Media Bureau said in a public notice posted Monday in docket 16-142. In its petition, NAB suggested a February 2028 deadline for stations in the top 55 markets -- covering 70% of the U.S. population -- shifting to 3.0-only broadcasts. It also asked the FCC to require that all TV broadcast receivers include 3.0 tuners.
Nexstar is reportedly having its local stations run segments that urge viewers to contact the FCC and call for broadcast deregulation. The Desk reported Monday that the segments -- about agency Chairman Brendan Carr's "Delete Delete Delete" deregulatory agenda (see 2503120024) -- began running last week. They finish with a mention of a link to a Nexstar website that includes prewritten social media posts urging deregulation of broadcast-related rules. A Nexstar spokesperson emailed that the agency "has asked for interested parties and the public to assist it in identifying regulations that should be updated or eliminated to address what Chairman Carr has called a 'break-glass moment for America’s broadcasters.'" He said "that initiative is an important news story for local broadcasters, worthy of mention by the very newscasts and outlets that are under threat from the outdated regulations at issue."