Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley this week urged FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and acting Media Bureau Chief Erin Boone to set a specific date for an ATSC 1.0 sunset, according to an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 16-142. “The best way to spur the availability of more consumer devices is to provide certainty regarding a sunset,” the filing said. Issuing a prompt NPRM on ATSC 3.0 would allow the FCC to sunset 1.0 in the top 55 markets by February 2028, as NAB has proposed, it added. "ATSC 3.0 is a game-changing opportunity for broadcasters to diversify their revenue streams and ensure that they can continue to serve their viewers -- but time is of the essence.”

ATSC 3.0 isn’t being widely used by consumers because it uses digital rights management encryption, said two YouTube broadcast influencers in a presentation to FCC Media Bureau staff -- including acting Chief Erin Boone -- last week, according to an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 16-142. Tyler Kleinle of the Antennaman YouTube channel and Lon Seidman of the Lon.TV YouTube channel have advocated against DRM in ATSC 3.0 with a number of online campaigns (see 2307130057) that have led to hundreds of consumer filings in the 3.0 docket. “The cost of complying with opaque, private regulations imposed on device manufacturers by the A3SA (ATSC 3.0 Security Authority) has resulted in market gatekeeping that significantly limits consumer choice,” said the filing. “ATSC 3.0 requires both an expensive 'NextGen TV' certification AND an equally expensive A3SA certification in order to tune live television,” the fillings said. This leads to expensive ATSC 3.0 tuners and a lack of competition, the filing said. Kleinle manufactures a low-cost 1.0 tuning device for optimizing antennas, but doing so for 3.0 would be cost-prohibitive, the filing said. “The best outcome would be to remove the private, opaque NextGenTV & A3SA regulations and allow device manufacturers to make TV tuners the same way they’ve been making them for the last two decades by self certifying their compliance,” the filing said. “If a device doesn’t work, the market will respond appropriately.”

Opponents of 5G Broadcast haven’t shown that HC2’s proposal to allow low-power TV stations to broadcast in the standard is inconsistent with the public interest, said HC2 in a meeting last week with Media Bureau acting Chief Erin Boone, according to an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 16-142. Critics, which include NAB and Sinclair Broadcast, "have not submitted any substantive interference information into the record and have merely alleged concerns about interference,” the filing said. Interference concerns about 5G broadcast “have been fully refuted by the technical showings” of HC2 and others, the filing said. The FCC should “move forward expeditiously” to issue an NPRM on HC2’s proposal, the filing said.

The FCC Media Bureau has reached a consent decree with Sinclair Broadcast-associated Cunningham Broadcasting over children’s programming violations related to Hot Wheels toys, according to an order released Friday. As with other recent settlements connected with those violations (see 2507180066), Cunningham won’t pay a penalty and will have its licenses renewed. The previous FCC approved a $140,000 forfeiture against the broadcaster, which Cunningham had appealed. The FCC reached a $500,000 settlement in June with Sinclair, which had faced a $2.6 million penalty over the same incident (see 2506300064). All the violations involved were connected to multiple airings of an ad for Hot Wheels toys during a Hot Wheels-themed TV program.

The FCC’s merger approval powers have become a weapon against the Trump administration’s political foes, said the Taxpayers Protection Alliance in a blog post Thursday. “This FCC’s antipathy for liberal media outlets, and their parent companies, stems from political disagreements,” said TPA. “News outlets hostile to a sitting president should not be subjected to harsher regulatory scrutiny than the president’s friends.” FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has characterized the agency’s pressure on broadcast networks as merely enforcement of the public interest standard. “According to Carr, the adherence to the public interest consists of adherence to his particular notion of unbiased journalism,” TPA said. “Whether the First Amendment allows for such an interpretation is -- at the least -- quite dubious.” It “seems clear that the public interest is at violent odds with any extension of state control over a free media,” TPA said. Conservative leaders such as former President Ronald Reagan -- who oversaw the elimination of the fairness doctrine -- “once understood the First Amendment objections to the marriage of un-biasing the media and the public interest,” TPA said. “Conservatives would do well to recover their lost understanding.”

The FCC should promptly issue an NPRM on a mandatory transition to ATSC 3.0, said Gray Media in a meeting and presentation Tuesday with an aide to Commissioner Olivia Trusty, according to an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 16-142. “The 30-year-old ATSC 1.0 standard places broadcasters at a technological disadvantage compared to other content and video delivery platforms, hindering the viewer experience and the ability of broadcasters to grow advertising revenues,” Gray said. ATSC 3.0 datacasting “will supplement and support video broadcasting; it will not replace it,” Gray said. Opponents of the proposal for a mandatory 3.0 transition have argued that broadcasters will use the new standard to neglect their public interest and content obligations (see 2507090052). Datacasting revenue “can help underwrite the expensive costs of producing high quality local journalism and help Gray fulfill its public interest obligations,” the filing said. “New retrans revenue fueled broadcast in the 2010s. Datacasting can do that in the 2030s,” said a slide included in the presentation.

Whether or not Paramount canceled Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show to please President Donald Trump, “the industry -- and industry investors -- believe they did," wrote Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld in a blog post Thursday. “Major companies seeking regulatory approval or conducting other business with the Trump administration, and their investors, believe the action was, or at least could be, politically motivated,” Feld wrote. “They will therefore do what they can to obey in advance.” The FCC’s ongoing behavior of investigating entities targeted by Trump “reinforces that belief,” and “encourages these companies to self-censor, keep their heads down, and avoid either news coverage or entertainment that could anger President Trump,” Feld said. “This quiet subservience, where media companies and creators toe the administration’s line, comes with a cost,” Feld said. “It limits free expression, shuts down open political discourse, and prevents us from even knowing the educational and entertainment options we’re missing because they’re simply not developed for fear of reprisal from President Trump.”

The Arizona Senate’s Republican leader has asked the FCC to investigate Arizona PBS over its coverage of the state’s 2022 gubernatorial election. Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen sent a letter to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr Tuesday calling for the investigation. The letter points to a report in the Arizona Republic that said leaders at Arizona State University -- which operates Arizona PBS -- considered Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s view that the 2020 election was stolen before offering her Democratic opponent, Katie Hobbs, airtime.

The FCC Media Bureau has approved Connoisseur Media’s purchase of Alpha Media and its 200-plus radio stations, said a letter in Wednesday’s Daily Digest. Connoisseur owns 11 stations in New York and Connecticut, but the deal will bring it up to 218 radio stations in 47 markets, Alpha said in a May release announcing the agreement. The terms of the transaction weren't disclosed. The two companies don’t have market overlaps but required a Media Bureau waiver because Alpha owns five FM stations in a single market in Texas as part of a grandfathered arrangement. Granting a waiver to allow Connoisseur to own the stations under a similar arrangement “will simply maintain the status quo,” said the Media Bureau. “Based on the structure of the market,” approving the transfer won't be “anticompetitive nor otherwise frustrate the goals of the Local Radio Ownership Rule,” the letter said.

The FCC Media Bureau is seeking comment on channel substitutions for WLOV Licensee and One Ministries, said NPRMs in Tuesday's Daily Digest. One Ministries wants to switch the community of license for KQSL Fort Bragg, California, to Cloverdale, California, said an NPRM in docket 25-246. WLOV Licensee wants to change the channel of WLOV-TV West Point, Mississippi, from 16 to 26, according to an NPRM in docket 25-247.