The Media Bureau has granted NAB’s request for an expedited retroactive extension of the audible crawl waiver, said an order Friday. The waiver applies from Nov. 26, 2024 -- the date of the last waiver’s expiration – until May 27, 2025, or until the FCC rules on NAB’s separate petition for a longer term waiver. Broadcasters have said that the expiration of the waiver, which had been continuously in effect since 2015, caused stations to pull radar maps from their severe weather coverage (see 2412170056). “We note that this action will maintain the status quo that existed prior to the expiration of the waiver on November 26, 2024, while the underlying petition is considered and this action does not prejudge the issues pending in that underlying petition,” the order said. Because the waiver would maintain the status quo from before it expired and no one has opposed NAB’s request, “we conclude that special circumstances warrant a further temporary waiver from this aspect of the Audible Crawl Rule for a brief period,” the order said. Though NAB asked for the temporary waiver until the FCC rules on the longer term request, the order limited it to six months because “grant of a temporary waiver that does not include a specific time period would be inconsistent with our prior actions in this area,” the order said. “Consistent with prior waivers, we continue to strongly encourage broadcasters to provide the critical details of graphically displayed emergency information in an accessible manner whenever possible during the pendency of this waiver.”

Oral argument in the legal challenge against the FCC’s collection of workforce diversity data is scheduled for Feb. 4 in New Orleans, said a notice Thursday from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in docket No. 24-60219. The National Religious Broadcasters, American Family Association and Texas Association of Broadcasters want the court to roll back the FCC’s February equal employment opportunity order for exceeding the agency’s authority and being unconstitutional. The FCC has said collecting the data and making it publicly available will improve diversity in the broadcast workforce (see 2410210044).

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should apply to the FCC’s collection of workforce demographic data from broadcasters the same reasoning it used in a recent ruling against the SEC, said the National Religious Broadcasters and other petitioners in a Tuesday filing in docket 24-60219. On Dec. 11, the 5th Circuit ruled en banc in Alliance for Fair Board Recruitment v. SEC that the agency lacked the authority to require companies to publicly disclose information about the race, gender and sexual orientation of their boards of directors. In that ruling, the court said the SEC was “stepping outside of its normal regulatory domain” with the requirement. “If Congress had granted a diversity mandate to any agency (an altogether unclear assumption), we would have expected Congress to give it to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or even the Department of Justice,” said the 5th Circuit in the en banc opinion. The FCC’s order requiring broadcasters to submit employee demographic data is a similar overreach, said NRB and fellow petitioners the Texas Association of Broadcasters and the American Family Association.

Sinclair Broadcast and Nashville PBS have launched a virtual ATSC 3.0 channel on WNPT-VC Nashville, allowing the PBS station to offer viewers access to ATSC 3.0 capabilities without requiring the station to commit the resources necessary to broadcast an ATSC 3.0 signal. “Viewers with NEXTGEN TVs can view and select WNPT-VC in their programming guide and access the channel seamlessly over the internet,” said a joint release from Sinclair, Nashville PBS and America’s Public Television Stations. The programming on WNPT-VC mirrors that of Nashville PBS’ main channel, “while providing enhanced accessibility for those with NEXTGEN-enabled televisions,” the release said. Sinclair and APTS have committed to launching such virtual channels for APTS member stations in markets where Sinclair has deployed ATSC 3.0, but the public station hasn’t. The Nashville launch is the program’s second; the first debuted in Nebraska in October. Noncommercial educational stations have faced difficulties deploying 3.0 signals because of a lack of capacity in their markets. The transition requires stations to host the content of other stations, and commercial stations have tended to pair with other commercial stations (see 2203300052). “As we bring our trusted educational, cultural and civic programming into the ATSC 3.0 ecosystem, we are excited to enhance the viewer experience and expand the reach of public television in Middle Tennessee,” said Becky Magura, CEO of Nashville PBS, in the release.

President-elect Donald Trump and ABC agreed to a $15 million settlement in Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the network over comments anchor George Stephanopoulos made during a March 10 broadcast about a jury verdict on sexual assault allegations that journalist E. Jean Carroll brought against Trump. The U.S. District Court for Southern Florida issued an order closing the defamation case Monday. ABC will pay $15 million as a contribution to the foundation responsible for constructing Trump’s presidential library, the settlement agreement said. The network must also attach a note to an article on ABC's site stating that ABC News and Stephanopoulos regret the anchor's statements. Under the settlement, the network also agreed to pay $1 million for Trump’s legal costs. The defamation complaint was based on a Stephanopoulos interview with Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., on his Sunday ABC television show. Stephanopoulos repeatedly said during the interview that multiple juries found Trump liable for raping Carroll. In 2023, a federal jury found Trump liable for sexually assaulting Carroll but not for raping her. Generally, it is considered difficult for public officials to win defamation cases, because under U.S. Supreme Court precedent it requires proof that the journalist's statement was made with malice. As such, the bar for bringing such a case is “high” but not “insurmountable,” said Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford in a blog post about a defamation case against Fox. Some see ABC’s settlement as connected to Trump’s impending presidency and his history of threats against the network. Trump has repeatedly threatened the network’s “license” (see 2409230022) and a conservative group has filed an FCC complaint against the network over its hosting of a 2024 presidential debate. ABC’s decision to settle the case instead of fighting it could “increase the possibility of additional lawsuits -- or threats of lawsuits -- from government officials who probably couldn’t actually win a defamation lawsuit because of the strong First Amendment protections that exist when speaking about those public officials or public figures generally,” said Freedom Forum First Amendment specialist Kevin Goldberg in an interview Monday. ABC didn’t comment.

The FCC’s Consolidated Data Base System’s public access search function will be discontinued Jan. 2, the Media Bureau said in a public notice in Monday’s Daily Digest. “The vast majority of all CDBS filed applications and associated attachments have been transferred to LMS [Licensing and Management System], and may be viewed using the LMS search function,” the PN said. “Persons seeking information regarding broadcast applications filed in either LMS or in CDBS should search LMS.”

Standard General’s lawsuit and conspiracy accusations against the FCC, Dish, Byron Allen, and several unions and public interest groups ignore rules protecting free speech and the conduct of government officials, said the defendants in a number of reply filings Tuesday, calling for the case to be dismissed (see 2409240017). Standard's lawsuit accuses those parties of being part of a racially motivated conspiracy to sink its acquisition of Tegna. “An agency’s conduct and oversight of an administrative proceeding is not a ‘conspiracy’ with parties who make submissions in that proceeding in accordance with agency procedures,” the FCC and Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a filing. “A ruling allowing this lawsuit to proceed would deter protected speech, discouraging vocal citizens, interest groups, and lobbyists everywhere,” said a filing from attorney David Goodfriend, who represented several unions opposing the failed Standard/Tegna deal. The defendants “have a constitutional right to donate to politicians and lobby the government, and no amount of rhetoric can support imposing a money judgment against them for engaging in protected speech,” said Allen Media. Dish and the FCC also argued that Standard’s case was improper because a hearing designation order isn’t a final agency action. Standard’s arguments that it needs the court to act to protect the FCC and others from conspiring against its future transactions should also be discarded because the agency is about to come under new leadership, the FCC said. The agency also dismissed Standard’s accusations of racial prejudice. “The allegations in the Amended Complaint are entirely consistent with the conclusion that the administrative process involved, not racial discrimination, but consideration of public interest factors submitted by interested parties,” the FCC said. “There is no ‘conspiracy’ exception to the First Amendment,” said Allen Media.

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 aren't 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.