FCC rules against payola bar radio broadcasters from receiving payment for more favorable airplay, even in the form of reduced fees for live performances at station-run concerts, warned the FCC Enforcement Bureau in an advisory Thursday. “Some radio stations appear to be violating the FCC's prohibition on Payola by surreptitiously forcing musicians to choose between (1) performing for free (or for reduced fees) at station events or (2) losing out on valuable radio airplay,” said FCC Chairman Brendan Carr in a post on X. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., sent a letter to Carr last week asking the FCC to look into the practice (see 2502040062). The advisory said the agency will hold stations that report to record-charting services -- and are thus more susceptible to payola -- to a higher standard on policing the activities of employees than it would a station with an all-news format. If the licensee of such a reporting station “does nothing more than require its employees to execute affidavits stating that they will not violate laws and regulations prohibiting payola,” that could fall short of the “reasonable diligence” the agency requires, the advisory said. Payola is also against the U.S. criminal code, so violating the rules “can subject the violator to criminal penalties of a fine of up to $10,000 or imprisonment of up to one year, or both.” The FCC “notes that licensees play a critical role in preventing payola, and the Commission’s enforcement staff will consider investigating substantive allegations of payola that come to its attention.”

The FCC’s investigation of CBS and demand for interview transcripts (see 2502050063) aren’t unprecedented because of the previous administration’s treatment of Fox’s WTXF Philadelphia, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said Thursday in an interview with Fox and Friends. “When the government's been weaponized in your favor, it feels like discrimination when all of a sudden there's even-handed treatment,” Carr said, calling critics of the CBS investigation “the radical left.” Under former Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, the FCC opened a proceeding on WTXF’s license renewal in response to a petition from the Media and Democracy Project. MAD’s petition argued that a court finding that Fox had aired false news about the 2020 election was sufficient basis for the FCC to hold a hearing on its license. The open proceeding held up WTXF’s license renewal for a year and a half, but the FCC didn’t hold a hearing, act against WTXF or act on repeated requests from MAD to include documents and court filings from defamation cases against Fox in the record. Rosenworcel rejected the MAD petition as one of her last acts as chairwoman (see 2501160081). Though Carr’s FCC resurrected the news distortion complaint against CBS and other complaints against ABC and NBC, he let the dismissal of the petition against WTXF stand (see 2501220059). “A lot of people that have been on a sort of upper road of a two-tiered system of government, and what I'm here to do is apply the law evenly,” Carr said. Former Fox and Disney lobbyist Preston Padden, who supported the MAD petition, clapped back. “Carr’s comment is pure BS,” he told us. “I believe he is pursuing the CBS complaint for one reason -- Trump wants him to.” Fox didn't comment.

The FCC’s investigation into PBS and NPR stations “could expand” beyond the “narrow issue” of underwriting, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in a Fox News interview Monday. The FCC sent letters to the two networks last week announcing an investigation into whether their member stations were running commercial ads (see 2501300065). “Where the investigation goes from there, we'll just be led by the facts,” Carr said Monday. “Every broadcaster has a public interest obligation, and for years, I think the FCC has been completely absent on enforcing the public interest obligation."

An ice scour -- floating ice gouging the seabed -- was likely the culprit for this month's fiber-optic cable line break impacting Quintillion service to North Slope and northwestern Alaskan communities (see 2501220001), President Mac McHale said in a statement Monday. He said Quintillion continues examining the area "and is working with commercial and government entities to possibly deploy remote operating vehicles with high-resolution cameras for additional forensic information." Quintillion "has aggressively moved forward with local partners to restore critical services in the near-term." The process will take weeks, though the company aims to restore some level of service by linking fiber between Nome and Utqiagvik with a network at the satellite ground stations in Nome for additional transport capacity. That hybrid solution will provide backup services until the fiber in the Beaufort Sea is fully repaired, McHale said. The company hopes that Federal Emergency Management Agency funds will be made available in coming weeks to help cover winter construction of a terrestrial route from Utqiagvik to Deadhorse, bypassing the subsea fault area, he said. That work, "with proper support and acceleration by federal agencies," could be done by spring.

Sinclair expects that local media segment revenue will be “down modestly” from its original projection of $936 million to $945 million, it said in a release Monday, preliminarily disclosing its Q4 earnings a month ahead of its Feb. 26 earnings call. The company said it now expects local media segment revenues to fall between $931 million and $933 million.” The decreased projected revenue will cross multiple categories, including political advertising and core advertising, the release said.

The FCC gave proper notice that the 2024 foreign-sponsored content rules could apply to noncandidate political advertising and public service announcements, the agency said in a brief Friday filed in docket 24-1296 at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. It also said Congress authorized the requirement that stations obtain certifications that their air time isn’t being leased by foreign governments. The law gives the FCC the power to require broadcasters to use “reasonable” diligence to determine the sponsor of an ad or lease, the agency said, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s Loper Bright v. Raimondo decision striking down Chevron deference. “The use of the term ‘reasonable’ means Congress ‘authorized’ the agency ‘to exercise a degree of discretion’ in determining the diligence required,” the FCC said.

The NAB-led multistakeholder ATSC 3.0 task force, The Future of TV Initiative (FOTI), released its final report Friday, but the document offers few actionable recommendations and shows little new agreement among stakeholders (see 2501090047). “The report will provide the FCC with a better understanding of stakeholders’ outstanding issues and concerns as it moves forward with the rulemakings necessary to complete the transition and will help focus the efforts of industry as they continue to deploy ATSC 3.0,” NAB said in a news release Friday.

The hearing proceeding on the TV and radio licenses of Antonio Guel and the Hispanic Christian Community Network will go forward with a paper hearing process rather than an in-person one, ruled FCC Administrative Law Judge Jane Halprin in an order Wednesday. The hearing proceeding is based in part on allegations that Guel pretended to sell his stations to relatives while actually retaining control of them and made misrepresentations to the agency (see 2408280048). Both Guel and the Enforcement Bureau support the paper process, the order said. A written process will “conserve the Commission’s resources in that it will not be necessary to engage the additional personnel needed to conduct a live hearing,” the order said. The affirmative case is due Feb. 21, response filings April 7 and final reply April 28, the order said.

OMB shouldn’t approve the information-collection requirements associated with the FCC’s most recent foreign-sponsored content rules, said NAB in comments posted Tuesday in docket 20-299 responding to the agency's Paperwork Reduction Act notice on the rules. The rules don’t comport with the PRA, the First Amendment or the Communications Act, said NAB, which has also challenged the rules at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (see 2412100070). Commissioner Brendan Carr, the FCC's incoming chair, partially dissented from the order approving the rules in May (see 2406100063). The FCC “continues to underestimate both the number of respondents and responses and the burdens of compliance, especially in light of the last minute dramatic expansion of the scope of its rules,” NAB said in the comments Tuesday. “Absent disapproval, OMB should at least require the Commission to gather more data and develop more accurate estimates in connection with the proposed information collections and make changes to minimize the burden on affected respondents.”

The full FCC approved five notices of apparent liability against pirate broadcasters proposing a total of $260,000 in penalties, according to NALs in Thursday’s Daily Digest. The NALs were approved 4-1, with Commissioner Nathan Simington dissenting. Simington has said he will dissent from all proceedings involving monetary forfeitures until the FCC responds to the U.S. Supreme Court’s SEC v. Jarkesy decision (see 2409060054). The agency proposed penalties of $60,000 for Carlos Alberto Vazquez of Painesville, Ohio; for Wilfredo Ayala of Hartford, Connecticut; and for Sheldon Morgan of Hartford and his company, Morgan Media. The FCC proposed $40,000 penalties each for James Baran of Geneva-on-the-Lake, Ohio, and Efrain Gonzalez of Waterbury, Connecticut. All the targets are connected with addresses where Enforcement Bureau field agents measured unauthorized radio broadcasts, and several of the pirate operators posted to social media platforms of videos themselves operating their stations, the NALs said.