Salem Media will pay a $50,000 civil penalty for repeatedly broadcasting a sponsored call-in show in 2017 that was identified on-air as live but was prerecorded, said an order and consent decree in Tuesday’s Daily Digest. HealthLine Live host Robert Marshall died in April 2017, but the show aired until December 2017, including portions in which the taped Marshall repeatedly described the show as live and urged viewers to call in, according to Salem’s response to an Enforcement Bureau letter of inquiry. “Any taped, filmed, or recorded program material in which time is of special significance, or by which an affirmative attempt is made to create the impression that it is occurring simultaneously with the broadcast, must be identified by broadcast licensees as taped, filmed, or recorded,” said the order. “Doing otherwise may mislead the public.” Along with the $50,000 payment, Salem must implement a compliance plan and file compliance reports with the FCC for three years.

FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks’ chief concerns with the shift to ATSC 3.0 are the data privacy and security implications, he told the NAB joint board annual meeting Monday. NEXTGEN TV’s features rely on consumer data collected by broadcasters and device makers, he said. “How will that data be kept secure? How will it be stored, anonymized, or sold? How will consumers be fully aware of what data are being collected and how it is being used?” There’s “an ever growing mountain” of evidence on the negative outcomes from artificial intelligence systems using algorithms to sift data and exhibiting biases for certain demographics, Starks said. “Widen your aperture to be aware of and conscientiously think through complex issues involving data and privacy that are going to dominate our shared future,” he told NAB. Starks also focused on FCC data collection, calling the FCC’s data collection on broadcast ownership diversity “stale.” It's "still not clear to me how, for nearly 20 years, the FCC ignored Congress’ will by not collecting” equal employment opportunity workforce diversity data, Starks said. “That means we have had zero visibility into the diversity of station management and news and production teams. I will continue to work to re-open this issue going forward,” he said. Starks disagreed that collecting EEO data or diversity policies would be vulnerable to constitutional challenges. “Collecting and analyzing data is a ministerial function that is necessary for the FCC, as an expert agency, to have a better understanding of the industries that we regulate,” Starks said. “We have a direct order from the 3rd Circuit Court to implement a data program that would help understand the impact of our regulatory efforts on the ability of women and people of color to own stations.” Broadcasters should work to improve diversity in broadcasting, he said. “Hold yourselves accountable -- this is an annual meeting of the NAB board, so make sure that one year from now, the numbers are better.”

Sinclair will sell Nexstar a station and pay $60 million as part of an agreed “resolution” to a 2018 breach of contract lawsuit Tribune filed against Sinclair in the wake of the scuttled Sinclair/Tribune deal, a Sinclair spokesperson said Monday. Nexstar bought Tribune in 2019, but the lawsuit continued in Delaware Chancery Court (see 1808150056). According to an 8-K form Sinclair filed with the SEC Monday, the lawsuit will be dismissed with prejudice as part of the settlement. "Neither party has admitted any liability or wrongdoing in connection with the terminated merger; both parties have settled the lawsuit to avoid the costs, distraction, and uncertainties of continued litigation." Nexstar filed a similar 8-K Monday as well. Along with the $60 million payment to Nexstar, Sinclair will sell the license of WDKY-TV Lexington, Kentucky, to Nexstar, plus non-license assets of KGBT-TV Harlingen, Texas. “Sinclair and Nexstar have also modified an existing agreement regarding carriage of certain of Sinclair’s digital networks by stations acquired by Nexstar in connection with the Tribune acquisition,” said the Sinclair spokesperson in an email. In the initial breach of contract filing in 2018, Tribune had sought $1 billion in damages over the failed deal. Attorneys told Communications Daily then that a settlement for a much smaller number was the likely outcome. Tribune blamed the Sinclair transaction’s failure on Sinclair’s contentious negotiations with the FCC and DOJ. “Sinclair invited litigation over station divestitures, summarizing its position to DOJ in two words: ‘sue me,’” the lawsuit’s initial complaint said. Sinclair filed a counterclaim arguing Tribune was involved in those negotiations and violated agreements by backing out of the deal after the FCC designated it for hearing. Sinclair’s licenses are up for renewal in 2020, and several attorneys have said they expect the questions about the company’s candor raised in the FCC hearing designation order to come up again during that process.

Entertainment Media Trust trustee Dennis Watkins has until Feb. 10 to show why its licensing applications before the FCC shouldn't be dismissed for failure to prosecute, agency Administrative Law Judge Jane Halprin said in a docket 19-156 order to show cause Friday.

Stations not owned by TV networks have a hard time getting "distribution, particularly via over-the-top platforms," CEO Emily Barr, General Counsel Heidi Schmid Whiting and another Graham Media executive told Commissioners Mike O’Rielly and Jessica Rosenworcel. FCC efforts to reduce broadcaster "regulatory burdens," appreciated so far, "can have an outsize effect on smaller station groups," the executives told the commissioners and aides in meetings Wednesday. The representatives cited recent media modernization, recounted a filing posted Friday in docket 17-105. Expect more to come from that initiative, agency officials told us (see 1912060039). The Computer & Communications Industry Association and Internet Association didn't comment on OTT distribution.

The FCC's newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership ban accelerated the decline of newspapers and is why southwest Ohio papers picked up by Terrier Media in its purchase of Cox stations may have to reduce to three-day-a-week print editions so as not to be deemed daily publications, former Commissioner Robert McDowell, now with Cooley, wrote Friday in the Dayton Daily News. He said criticisms about the role of private equity in Terrier Media's buy of Cox (see 2001020034) are "disingenuous." The ownership ban is a hurdle blocking investment in newspapers and "needs to be eliminated as soon as possible," he said. Terrier Media was given a two-month extension as it tries to sell the newspapers (see 2001150071); Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, backed that extension. His letter Jan. 14 to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai was posted Friday.

Supporters and critics of letting low-power TV channel 6 stations provide analog FM radio services beyond the 2021 DTV conversion deadline were at odds in FCC docket 03-185 filings posted through Thursday. That included disagreements about whether the audio service is an allowable ancillary or supplementary service. Two rules modifications would easily let the FCC extend the authorization of analog Channel 6 LPTV stations offering analog 87.7 FM audio service after the LPTV digital transition, the LPTV Spectrum Coalition said: Doing so would shorten the DTV moving time and keep alive the analog audio service. The group said concerns about interference from Channel 6 stations broadcasting a dual digital TV/analog audio signal "are both highly exaggerated [and] easily managed in the real world field engineering work." It said if the FCC wants to be "overly cautious," it could opt for contour overlap restrictions and bans on actual interference. The public interest benefit in keeping the service is "indisputable" given millions of regular listeners, said the Preserve Community Programming Coalition. It echoed the LPTV Spectrum Coalition's call for rules modifications. There have been few if any instances of Channel 6 FM audio causing interference, and interference rules could remedy any that occur, said Educational Media Foundation. LPTV operators back continuing the service (see 2001220063). In contrast, Common Frequency said there might be value in retaining the FM facilities, but doing so would be "an awkward move." It said the agency should either grandfather the current rules, allowing a certain amount of analog TV stations still existing on Channel 6 beyond 2021, or replace the service. It urged eliminating Channel 6 for TV use and 82-88 MHz for channels to migrate AM licensees. NPR said analog FM authorizations beyond 2021 "would be misguided" since each "Franken FM" station takes up 30 times the spectrum a traditional FM station uses, calling that a misuse of public airwaves. NPR said such analog audio service isn't an ancillary and supplementary service under the Communications Act and extending the authorizations would violate rules on TV stations operating independent visual and aural transmitters. The California State University Long Beach Research Foundation, which advocated for FM broadcast interference protections from LPTV stations operating on Channel 6, said the agency needs to consider the scope of that problem. The CSU foundation said there are different ways to address the issue, such as emission masks on LPTV stations.

Pearl TV Managing Director Anne Schelle discussed broadcaster progress on ATSC 3.0 with FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr in a Jan. 16 meeting, said an ex parte filing posted in docket 16-142 Wednesday. Broadcast engineers and analysts at a conference the same day discussed the need to communicate to advertisers and consumers about the new standard (see 2001160052).

The FCC Media Bureau Video Division dismissed a 2014 application for review from Free Press of the 2013 sale of stations from Local TV Holdings to Tribune sidecar Dreamcatcher as moot. So said a letter dated Dec. 9 and posted in docket 13-190 Wednesday: Since the stations were transferred to Tribune and then to Scripps as part of Nexstar buying Tribune and Dreamcatcher is no longer a licensee, the sharing agreements don't exist.

The full FCC dismissed an application for review appealing sale of two TV stations for a lack of standing, said an order posted Wednesday. Nalini, Rishi and Ravi Kapur opposed Media Bureau approval of KAXT-CD San Francisco-San Jose and KTLN-TV Palo Alto from OTA to TV-49. The Kapurs were minority owners of KAXT when OTA bought it in 2014, and opposed that and the renewal of KAXT’s license, the order said. “In several subsequent decisions, the Division and the full Commission have repeatedly rejected the Kapurs’ challenges.” The Kapurs argued the sale to OTA was illegal, and OTA lacks the character to be a licensee. “OTA argues in its AFR Opposition that the AFR is the Kapurs’ latest attempt to use the Commission’s processes to exact revenge on their former business partners for selling KAXT to OTA,” the order said. The Kapurs didn’t demonstrate injury from the sale, and the FCC and courts “repeatedly rejected standing assertions” advanced by minority interest holders, the agency said. Ravi Kapur said his family is considering its options.