A draft order on collecting broadcaster and cable workforce diversity data using form 395-B was circulated to the 10th floor just a week after a call for action from 27 Democratic lawmakers and Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, according to FCC officials and the agency’s circulation webpage (see 2312150051). The equal employment opportunity item was teed up by a 2021 NPRM and has long been a focus for Starks. Public interest groups and NAB disagreed about how the data should be handled after the FCC collects it. Groups like Common Cause want the data to be publicly available in an online portal searchable by station. Meanwhile, broadcasters said they want the information anonymized. It's unclear what position the draft takes. The circulated item includes a report and order and a Further NPRM, according to the circulation listing. The FCC’s data collection using the form was suspended in 2001 after two court cases raised constitutional concerns. It was never revived. “It’s been the law for decades that the FCC was supposed to collect this data,” said United Church of Christ Media Ministry attorney Cheryl Leanza in an interview. “Data has never been more important than now. How will we know if we’re going in the right direction without data?”

FCC commissioners approved a draft NPRM that would require that the agency receive notice of blackouts owing to failed retransmission consent talks between MVPDs and broadcasters, the commission said Thursday. The reporting NPRM and a companion NPRM on customer refunds for blackouts were circulated in October (see 2310110075). Citing a lack of basic information on channel blackouts, the NPRM said getting reports from MVPDs "would be the most effective method for the Commission to gain important and timely information about broadcast station blackouts ... and better fulfill our statutory obligation involving the retransmission consent negotiation process." In a statement, Commissioner Nathan Simington supported the NPRM but was skeptical of the tentative conclusion's citation of Section 632 of the Cable Act -- regarding cable customer service standards -- as a legal basis for the proposed reporting requirements. He said there are other valid sources of authority, and Section 632 "is a considerably narrower provision than recent Commission action suggests."

Legacy media companies continue to wrongly focus on eliminating streaming platform financial losses and shoring up balance sheets rather than growing robust and profitable long-term streaming businesses, research firm LightShed blogged Tuesday. It said Peacock "continues to be a horrible use of capital by Comcast." Instead, it should be shut, merged into Starz or made into a digital version of the NBC network, LightShed said. In addition, Disney should drop plans for allowing ESPN to go directly to consumers and shift key ESPN+ content to a combined Disney+/Hulu platform, it said. This would be a better use of Disney's streaming investment and management resources. Likewise, Paramount+ is unlikely to recoup billions already spent, so Paramount Global should unwind its integration with Showtime, move exclusive sports content back to linear TV, license high-profile originals and close overseas launches, it added. Moreover, Warner Bros. Discovery should undo the Discovery+/HBO integration, rebrand Max to HBO, abandon global plans for Max and focus on licensing HBO content internationally. It recommended keeping Discovery+ as a niche streaming service.

Expect next year to bring AI-powered tools that will help streaming providers obtain useful data insights through "simple, natural language interactions," NPAW blogged Tuesday. In addition, the software as a service company expects AI will help provide a more personalized user experience as well as improve language-related services. For example, AI tools could improve the accuracy and speed of subtitling and dubbing languages and dialects, including in real time, NPAW said. After several strikes reduced the amount of content produced in 2023, NPAW expects media will reduce content output in 2024. Instead, media will pursue "a renewed focus on building a sustainable business rather than simply delivering new user growth."

The FCC Public Safety Bureau granted GCI Cable’s request for a temporary waiver of the requirement -- enacted in September 2022 -- that emergency alert system participants update their equipment to be able to prioritize alerts delivered by common alerting protocol by Tuesday, said an order in that day’s Daily Digest. Alerts delivered via the internet-based CAP can provide richer text information and are more accessible than those delivered via the legacy EAS system. GCI said it discovered that several of its EAS encoders are unable to process the required software update and that supply chain issues have delayed delivery of new encoders. “We conclude there is good cause to provide an extension of time until March 11, 2024, to accommodate the anticipated hardware delivery and installation estimated by GCI,” the bureau order said. Paramount Global requested a similar 30-day extension of the deadline for three of its 29 stations for similar reasons, a petition for temporary waiver posted Tuesday in docket 15-94 said. “The Paramount Global Licensees are fully committed to the expeditious installation and operation of their new EAS equipment well within the 30-day period requested.”

DirecTV and Tegna are blaming one another for a blackout of 66 Tegna stations in 52 metro regions by DirecTV, DirecTV Stream and U-verse channel lineups. It started Thursday night with the expiration of their retransmission consent agreement. Backing DirecTV, American TV Alliance said in a statement Friday that the blackout "represents more of the same tired old tactics from TEGNA’s well-worn playbook that come entirely at the expense of American consumers. The FCC and Congress must take a stand and protect consumers." DirecTV said it has offered a la carte pricing where Tegna would set prices for its stations' subscribers but that Tegna is "demanding double-digit annual rate increases that would make it the most expensive broadcaster nationwide." Tegna said that "despite months of effort, DIRECTV has refused to reach a fair, market-based agreement. We urge DIRECTV to continue to negotiate with us until a deal is reached that restores our stations to their customers."

MSNBC should "pay for their illegal political activity," Donald Trump posted late Tuesday evening on Truth Social. The former president said the cable network "uses FREE government approved airwaves, and yet it is nothing but a 24 hour hit job on Donald J. Trump and the Republican Party for purposes of ELECTION INTERFERENCE." He said Brian Roberts, CEO of parent Comcast, "is a slimeball who has been able to get away with these constant attacks for years." The network "is the world’s biggest political contribution to the Radical Left Democrats who, by the way, are destroying our Country," Trump said, urging "Our so-called 'government' [to] come down hard on [the network]." MSNBC didn't comment. Cable networks such as MSNBC do not use public airwaves.

Tegna is warning DirecTV and U-Verse subscribers about a possible blackout of local Tegna stations if there's no new retransmission consent agreement. "We hope that DIRECTV is willing to negotiate a market-based deal before the November 30 deadline and doesn’t take away DIRECTV and AT&T U-Verse customers’ local news, weather, sports and network programs," the broadcaster said in a statement sent to us Tuesday. DirecTV emailed that Tegna "has once again made a private negotiation public in the hopes of creating unnecessary and premature concern among some of our customers to extract higher rates for local broadcast stations." DirecTV said it "will ... do our utmost to shield them from unwarranted price hikes as we work with TEGNA to renew its stations without any interruption.” Tegna owns and operates 68 stations in 54 metropolitan regions.

Paramount Global probably isn't headed to the auction block, even though the company adopted handsome golden parachutes for top executives recently, LightShed Partners' Rich Greenfield wrote Tuesday in an investors note. It would likely be doing more aggressive cost-cutting if it were prepping for a sale, he wrote. In addition, it likely would have sold Showtime already instead of using the network to bolster its Paramount+ streaming service, he added. Greenfield says a major question is who would want to acquire Paramount Global. "We do not believe any tech platform (Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft or Netflix) wants to buy a collection of declining broadcast/cable networks that are tied to the fading multichannel video bundle," Greenfield wrote, adding tech platforms are probably more focused on acquiring sports rights when existing deals expire and licensing what they want instead. Legacy media companies also don't seem to be likely buyers, and Paramount Global isn't acting as if it's interested in selling component parts such as its studio or linear TV assets, he said. Instead, the company is more likely moving toward bigger cost-cutting, scaled-back ambitions for Paramount+ and additional licensing of catalog and original programming to third parties, he said. The company told the SEC last week it adopted a change in control severance plan for executives.

This year has seen the biggest jump in virtual MVPD subscriber numbers since 2020, but it still wasn't enough to offset the huge decline in traditional pay-TV subscriber numbers, nScreenMedia's Colin Dixon blogged Monday. Today, 59 million homes -- 45.2% of U.S. households -- have a traditional pay-TV subscription, compared with 88% 10 years ago, he wrote. VMVPDs YouTube TV and Hulu+ Live are the fifth and sixth largest multichannel video providers in the U.S., respectively, and YouTube TV is likely to overtake Dish Network in Q4, he said.