The prospects for achieving broadcast ownership deregulation are “better than at any point in the recent past” under the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump, said Nexstar CEO Perry Sook in a Q&A during the UBS Global Communications Conference. Sook said Monday he expects a congressional effort will scrap the 39% broadcast ownership cap and implement internal FCC changes that will ease rules on broadcasters within the first six months of the new administration. Incoming FCC head and current Commissioner Brendan Carr “gets it,” Sook said. “We've been in contact with him, and will continue to be in close contact.” Sook said that Carr’s repeated statements on taking away broadcast licenses and holding broadcasters to a public interest standard are aimed at NBC, CBS and ABC. “I think there is some animus or frustration with some of the networks for some of their content decisions.” However, Sook downplayed the threat. “FCC chairmen can't really unilaterally revoke licenses,” he said. “Now you can use your pulpit to commence hearings ... and ... make people's lives more expensive and more difficult, but unilaterally removing licenses is not really within the cards.” Along with Carr, Sook said Nexstar discussed deregulation with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La. Unlike previous pushes to change the national cap, the broadcast TV groups support completely removing it this time, Sook said. “The industry itself is united around the need and not divided as to what the right number is.” Carr could spur TV market consolidation simply by signaling that waivers allowing top-four duopolies would be more liberally granted, Sook said, adding it’s a move he could make without a majority at the commission. Sook is also looking to Carr to eliminate the simulcast requirement for the ATSC 3.0 transition and establish a date certain to end ATSC 1.0. “We are spending time working with both the legislative and the executive branch to try and affect these changes.”

The FCC’s 2024 foreign-sponsored content rules violate the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act and are outside the FCC’s authority over sponsorship ID, NAB said in an initial brief filed Tuesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (see 2409160043). NAB successfully challenged the 2021 version of those rules, leading to the additional requirement in 2024 that broadcasters and entities leasing programming time from them certify that foreign governments are sponsoring lessees. The newer rules “dramatically expanded” the requirement by redefining a lease of airtime to include non-candidate political advertising and public service announcements, NAB said. The order violates the First Amendment by imposing content-based restrictions on protected speech, it said. The 2024 rules “radically increase the burdens on lessees, advertisers, and broadcasters by sweeping in hundreds of thousands of new transactions, including advertising spots, under the foreign-sponsor identification regime,” NAB said. That expansion isn’t a logical outgrowth of the FCC’s rulemaking process, which had sought comment only upon a request from broadcasters for a clarification on the length of ads excluded from the 2021 rules, NAB said. “The APA is not satisfied by a rumor mill,” said the brief. The FCC “still has no evidence of any foreign governmental sponsorship of any form of advertising, including political advertising,” NAB said. That is why the 2021 rules excluded “traditional, short-form advertising” from the requirements, “and the Commission never explained why its analysis changed.”

The FCC is seeking comment on NAB’s request for a retroactive waiver of the agency’s audible crawl rule while the comment period on the association's previous request for an extension of a waiver of the same rule remains open, said a public notice Friday. The FCC’s rule requiring aural description of visual, non-textual emergency information, such as radar maps, has been repeatedly waived since 2015, but the most recent waiver lapsed Nov. 26. NAB had already requested an extension by then, but comments on that request aren’t closed until Jan. 9, so the trade group last week asked the FCC to issue a retroactive temporary waiver until the agency decides on issuing a longer one (see 2411290007). Comments on the retroactive waiver are due Dec.13, replies Dec. 18, in docket 12-107, Friday’s PN said. Without the retroactive waiver, many broadcasters have ceased using radar maps to avoid violating the aural description requirement, NAB told the FCC. NAB has maintained that automated audio description of a visual graphic isn’t currently technologically feasible.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, the incoming chair, suggested Friday the agency could open a proceeding on the definition of the broadcaster public interest requirement and that he's open to broadcast ownership deregulation. In an interview with CNBC Friday, Carr said broadcasters “have to operate in the public interest, and ... it's probably appropriate for the FCC to take a fresh look at what that requirement looks like.” He added, “There is something different about broadcasters and say, podcasters, where you have to operate in a public interest,” Carr said. “So right now, all I'm saying is maybe we should start a rulemaking to take a look at what that means.” Carr also said he wants a fresh look at “a whole set of ownership issues” and ensuring “we get investment in local news.” He reiterated that revocation of broadcaster licenses for not meeting the public interest is “on the table,” though he also said that the law prevents the FCC from engaging in censorship. “I don't want to be the speech police.”

The FCC under presumed next Chairman Brendan Carr will scrutinize the Skydance/Paramount deal but also remove restrictions on broadcast ownership and “rebalance the scales in favor of business,” former FCC aide Adonis Hoffman wrote in a blog post for The Media Institute Wednesday. Although the FCC would “normally” review only the transfer of broadcast licenses connected with Paramount/Skydance, Hoffman said Paramount has issues with audience measurement and minority shareholders questioning the deal and that could merit the FCC conducting a more thorough examination. A complaint filed against CBS about editing a 60 Minutes interview “is unlikely to pass legal muster” but is also likely to lead Carr to look more closely at the transaction, Hoffman said. Though Hoffman expects scrutiny of the Paramount deal, the agency also will be friendlier to other broadcast acquisitions. “The new FCC promises to be much less hostile to companies seeking to consolidate,” he wrote. “That alone should encourage the mergers and acquisitions deals that have been sitting on the sidelines awaiting a more favorable regulatory environment.” He said Carr is likely to “reconfigure the vast amount of power that FCC bureaus now have and to centralize that decision-making in the office of the chairman.” That will make it more difficult for bureaus to levy fines and derail deals, Hoffman said, adding Carr will also likely streamline or sideline the agency’s advisory committees. Carr’s FCC “can be expected to function more like an activist SEC,” with regulations always changing to reflect shifting market dynamics. “Having served at the FCC as a legal adviser, Commissioner and now Chairman Carr has the institutional credibility to be politically courageous in consolidating power and effecting change.”

Several large TV station groups stopped displaying weather radar maps because the FCC hasn’t granted an extension of the audible crawl waiver, NAB said in an ex parte filing posted Friday. The audible crawl rule requires that broadcasters provide an aural description of visual, non-textual emergency information like moving radar maps, but the FCC has repeatedly and continuously waived it since 2015 because broadcasters maintained compliance isn’t technologically possible. "The technology for automated audio description of a dynamic image simply does not yet exist to permit broadcasters to effectively and efficiently abide by the non-textual component of the Audible Crawl Rule,” NAB said in a previous filing requesting an extension of the waiver The FCC is seeking comment on granting another extension (see 2411250059) but didn’t temporarily extend the waiver that expired Tuesday to include the comment period as it has in similar circumstances. “Because compliance with the existing rule remains impossible, absent a waiver, many broadcasters will stop providing radar maps and other visual, non-textual emergency information, due to concerns about potential Commission enforcement,” NAB said. In Friday’s filing, NAB asked that the FCC grant an expedited, brief and retroactive extension of the waiver while the agency considers its request for a longer extension. The comment period for the longer extension closes Jan. 9. The American Council for the Blind backs the expedited extension request, NAB said. “There is no doubt that the Commission’s inaction regarding a waiver extension will harm the public,” NAB said. “It will lead to diminished useful information about emergencies for all Americans, including deaf and hard of hearing individuals who may rely on the visual emergency information conveyed by radar maps and similar images.” As part of the current extension request, NAB has also asked that the FCC change the rule to specify "that compliance is fulfilled if a station provides textual crawls that provide emergency information duplicative or equivalent to the information conveyed by the visual image.”

The FCC’s Office of General Counsel dismissed an appeal of FCC Administrative Law Judge Jane Halprin’s ruling that the same attorney can't represent multiple parties in the hearing proceeding on the TV and radio licenses of Antonio Guel and the Hispanic Christian Community Network (see 2409130064). Petitioners Maria Guel and Jennifer Juarez -- Antonio Guel’s daughter and niece, respectively -- wanted broadcast attorney Dan Alpert to represent them in the case, though he also represents Antonio Guel. The hearing proceeding is based in part on allegations that Antonio Guel pretended that he sold his stations to Juarez while actually retaining control of them, and filings in the case show Maria Guel and Antonio Guel as heading multiple companies involved in the matter. That makes Alpert’s representation of all three a conflict, Halprin ruled in September. Juarez and Maria Guel appealed that ruling to the OGC but did so without seeking authorization from Halprin, FCC Associate General Counsel Chin Yoo said in an order posted Nov. 27. “Since the Petitioners did not seek such leave, we dismiss the appeal on procedural grounds as unauthorized, without reaching the merits,” the order said.

Radio Communications Corporation wants the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to strike an FCC filing related to a disagreement between the agency and the broadcaster over oral argument conducted before the court last week (see 2411180040). After the Nov. 18 oral argument, RCC sent the court a letter disputing a statement FCC attorney Adam Sorensen made during the session about must-carry rights. Sorensen told the three-judge panel: “There’s really nothing in the statute that would indicate to the commission that Congress had even considered the issue, let alone taken the very significant step of extending must-carry rights to Class A stations.” RCC’s letter after oral argument disputed that statement, pointing to language in a 2004 amendment to the Satellite Home Viewer Act that defined Class A stations as low-power TV stations. The FCC responded Friday, saying the court should disregard RCC’s letter because it wasn’t pertinent, and the company didn’t raise the matter in its briefs. “The fact that Congress defined Class A stations as low-power television stations for purposes of the Satellite Home Viewer Extension and Reauthorization Act of 2004 does not suggest that Class A stations are equivalent to full power stations in all other contexts,” the FCC said. In a motion filed the same day, RCC said the FCC’s response should be stricken from the record. The FCC’s response “unfairly denied RCC the opportunity to rebut the Commission’s procedural arguments because the Court’s ECF filing system does not allow RCC to file a further response to the Commission’s Letter,” said RCC. “Therefore, RCC is compelled, and unfairly so, to file the instant motion to strike.” RCC’s filings were “entirely appropriate and warranted under the circumstances and certainly not deserving of a rebuke from the party who misstated the law to the Court,” RCC said.

The FCC is seeking comment on an NAB petition for an additional extension of a waiver of a 2013 rule requiring that broadcasters provide audio description on a second audio stream of emergency information conveyed through graphics, said a public notice in docket 12-107 Monday. Compliance with the 2013 rule was originally required by 2015, but the agency granted an 18-month waiver and has repeatedly extended it, most recently by 18 months in 2023. The waiver is currently set to expire Tuesday. In addition to the requested extension of the waiver, NAB is seeking a rule change specifying "that compliance is fulfilled if a station provides textual crawls that provide emergency information duplicative or equivalent to the information conveyed by the visual image.” It “remains impossible for stations to continue to provide important emergency information to viewers while complying with the audible crawl rule as written,” NAB said. Comments are due in docket 12-107 on Dec. 26, replies Jan. 9.

Oral argument in the legal challenge against the FCC’s collection of workforce diversity data is “tentatively scheduled” for the week of Feb. 3, said a notice from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in docket No. 24-60219 Friday. The National Religious Broadcasters, the American Family Association and the Texas Association of Broadcasters have argued that the FCC’s February equal employment opportunity order is unconstitutional and outside the agency’s authority, while the agency has said collecting the data and making it publicly available will improve diversity in broadcasting (see2410210044).