Revise the low-power FM order set for Thursday’s meeting to include a timeline for sunsetting interference protections for channel 6 low-power TV stations (see 2004010063), NPR asked an aide to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, per a filing posted Friday in docket 19-193. The order should reflect “more balanced representation” of the record, and “correctly state” interference protections between LPTV and noncommercial educational FM stations, the public radio programmer asked. NPR is concerned case-by-case waiver of channel 6 interference rules may not provide relief for reserved band NCE FMs.
Entertainment Media Trust’s radio stations are off-air, EMT trustee Dennis Watkins told us in a brief interview. The stations went off the dial Friday, reported The Riverfront Times. EMT’s stations had been operating despite having their licenses canceled, after the company ceased participating in an FCC administrative law hearing on its renewal applications (see 2004020035). The St. Louis-area newspaper quotes radio host Bob Romanik -- who the FCC said was the actual decision-maker at EMT -- as saying the stations will broadcast again. Watkins told us EMT doesn’t have plans to resume broadcasting or seek an appeal of the hearing result. The Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council wants the FCC to use EMT’s licenses as a broadcast incubator (see 2003200068).
Entercom’s digital content radio.com hit a record 40 million monthly users in March, said a news release. The platform’s visitor base has more than doubled from the same time last year. Seventy percent of the streamers are ages 25-54, and 61% come from households with over $50,000 income.
Comments responding to the FCC NPRM on significantly viewed stations (see 2003310066) are due in docket 20-73 May 14, replies June 15, said a public notice Tuesday.
President Donald Trump's presidential campaign sued WJFW Rhinelander, Wisconsin, for repeatedly airing a commercial the campaign says uses misleading editing to make it seem that Trump called the coronavirus a hoax. The Priorities USA political action committee created the ad. “WJFW-NBC has perpetrated a fraud on the public by recklessly broadcasting PUSA’s defamatory and false advertisement,” reads the complaint filed Monday in Price County Circuit Court. The campaign previously sent broadcasters airing the ad a cease and desist letter (see 2003270063). The campaign seeks punitive damages and a jury trial. WJFW and the White House didn’t comment Monday.
NAB’s virtual stand-in for its canceled Las Vegas show is May 13-14, said the group Monday. Registration opens April 20 for the free NAB Show Express, which will offer on-demand content, online educational sessions and product exhibitions. Some sessions will replicate events that had been planned for the Las Vegas show, including President Gordon Smith’s annual address. There will be a channel dedicated to content from the Broadcast Engineering and Information Technology conference that was to have opened this weekend in Vegas. Express will feature three stand-alone “training and executive leadership events” with registration fees, the release said. The association canceled the annual show March 11, the day the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic (see 2003200039). Brightcove and Frequency Audio-Visual Services will be the enabling platforms for the online conference,
The waiver process for Channel 6 TV stations proposed in the draft low-power FM order set for the April 23 commissioners’ meeting (see 2004020062) needs notice and comment provisions, said Disney and subsidiary ABC in a letter posted Thursday in docket 19-193. The draft order would allow LPFM stations to seek waivers of requirements that they protect LPTV stations broadcasting on Channel 6. The proposed waiver process proposed doesn’t adequately ensure affected TV stations can evaluate interference ramifications of such waivers, the full-power broadcaster said: Without requirements affected TV stations get the opportunity to comment, Channel 6 TV stations would have to “affirmatively monitor FCC filings.”
The FCC Enforcement Bureau issued a notice of violation against Cumulus after KBED(AM) Nederland, Texas, operated above required power levels after sunset due to a faulty remote system. The notice said the station also had a damaged door at an antenna towers, which employees said was caused by flooding.
Broadcasters need no air announcements about their June 1 license renewal applications because of COVID-19, said the FCC Media Bureau. This "alleviate[s] administrative and compliance burdens,” allowing for more public service announcements and pandemic coverage, said Thursday's order. An FNPRM proposed eliminating the prefiling announcement requirement, and no commenters opposed that (see 1911190064). The order applies to those with licenses expiring in October. MB "will monitor the status of the COVID-19 outbreak to determine whether further relief is warranted.”
Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and 18 other Democrats urged Senate leaders to include funding in the next COVID-19 bill “to support local journalism and media." Free Press Action, Michael Copps of Common Cause and others also sought media funding Wednesday. The News Media Alliance seeks similar (see 2003300057). “Local news is in a state of crisis that has only been exacerbated” by COVID-19 economic fallout, the Democratic senators wrote Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Appropriations Committee leaders. “Local papers and local broadcasters have lost even more of the advertising revenue they rely on” because most nonessential businesses have temporarily shuttered. “During this unprecedented public health crisis, people need to have access to their trusted local news outlets” for “reliable and sometimes life-saving information,” the senators said. FP and other groups want Congress to allocate at least $5 billion to support local journalism, including for CPB.