A long-stalled proceeding on the transfer of an FM translator station to convicted sex offender and Lake Broadcasting CEO Michael Rice has been terminated after Rice’s death in August, said an order Thursday from FCC Deputy Associate General Counsel Michael Janson. The proceeding dates back to a 2012 proposed sale of a Montgomery, Alabama, translator by Patrick Sullivan to Lake Broadcasting (see 1905310053). That deal was designated for hearing because Rice previously had licenses revoked for making misrepresentations to the FCC and because of his conviction for several child sex offenses in 1994.

CBS should release the transcript of an October 2023 60 Minutes interview with then-President Joe Biden and promptly install a bias ombudsman, said the Center for American Rights in an ex parte FCC filing last week. CAR pointed to a recent New York Times article in which former Paramount Global head Shari Redstone said Biden seemed drowsy during the interview with journalist Scott Pelley.

The FCC should be skeptical about TV broadcasters' arguments that setting a date for the ATSC 1.0 sunset will lead to the consumer electronics industry stepping up production of 3.0 receivers, said YouTube content creator and tech reviewer Lon Seidman in a letter to the agency posted Thursday in docket 16-142. When Pearl TV and broadcasters supported a voluntary rollout of ATSC 3.0, they repeatedly said that widespread voluntary adoption of the standard would create enough demand for electronics manufacturers, Seidman said. “Given these contradictions, the Commission should treat the current claims with caution and weigh them against the industry’s own earlier statements,” the letter said. “The real reason the market failed to materialize is that Pearl’s members, working through the [ATSC 3.0 Security Authority], imposed a private and opaque regulatory framework that prevented this from ever functioning as a true free market.” Meeting the industry’s security requirements is “so costly that in many cases compliance costs more than the actual manufacturing costs.”

The FCC Media Bureau is restoring language in the agency’s ATSC 3.0 rules that it said was inadvertently deleted in 2023, according to an order in Wednesday’s Daily Digest. The language in question involved the requirements to show public interest for non-expedited applications to deploy ATSC 3.0, the order said. The provisions were accidentally removed from the Code of Federal Regulations when the FCC modified the 3.0 rules for multicast streams in 2023, it said. The FCC at the time “never stated or implied” that it “intended to rescind these subsections.” The bureau said it's restoring the rules without seeking comment, effective immediately, because fixing the error falls under the “good cause” exemption to the Administrative Procedure Act.

NAB is launching a three-year initiative that will work with TV stations and broadcast groups to create ATSC 3.0-based projects for local newsrooms, said a release Wednesday. Funded by a $2.5 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the project -- called the NextGen TV News Technology Lab -- will provide resources and support for stations to work on using 3.0 with emergency alerting, news coverage, sports broadcasting and other applications. “As the broadcast industry deploys NextGen TV, it is essential that newsrooms are empowered to fully leverage this technology to enhance the essential services they provide to viewers,” NAB Chief Technology Officer Sam Matheny said in the release. The program runs through October 2028, a period that coincides with NAB’s proposal for broadcasters to cease transmitting ATSC 1.0.

The ATSC 3.0 Security Authority (A3SA) has a “uniform set of policies that applies equally and objectively to all manufacturers of a particular device type,” and it's interested in bringing gateway devices to market, said Pearl TV and A3SA in a meeting with acting Media Bureau Chief Erin Boone and other bureau staff last week, according to an ex parte filing posted Tuesday. Recent filings at the agency have accused the A3SA of using encryption requirements (see 2508180062) to block ATSC 3.0 device manufacturers (see 2507220075).

President Donald Trump said on social media Sunday that ABC and NBC should “lose their licenses” or else pay “Millions of Dollars a year in LICENSE FEES.” Broadcast networks aren't licensed by the FCC. Trump said in one post that ABC and NBC are biased and give him “97% BAD STORIES.” The networks “ARE SIMPLY AN ARM OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY AND SHOULD, ACCORDING TO MANY, HAVE THEIR LICENSES REVOKED BY THE FCC,” Trump wrote. “I would be totally in favor of that because they are so biased and untruthful, an actual threat to our Democracy!!!” ABC and NBC should “lose their Licenses for their unfair coverage of Republicans and/or Conservatives, but at a minimum, they should pay up BIG for having the privilege of using the most valuable airwaves anywhere at anytime!!!” he added in another post. “Crooked ‘journalism’ should not be rewarded, it should be terminated!!!”

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.