The FCC Media Bureau granted an unopposed market modification petition for WRNN-TV New Rochelle, New York, said an order posted Thursday in docket 19-95. WRNN License Company requested modification of the station’s market to include communities served by Spectrum’s Bergen County, New Jersey, cable system, the order said.
DOJ will require Nexstar divest TV stations in 13 markets to approve the $6.4 billion deal to buy Tribune, said a department news release and complaint Wednesday evening. Nexstar had initially proposed to divest stations in 15 markets to bring the deal in line with FCC ownership regulations. Many of the divestiture markets requested by Justice overlap with Nexstar’s original divestiture proposal (see 1903200058). “Without the required divestitures, Nexstar’s merger with Tribune threatens significant competitive harm to cable and satellite TV subscribers and small businesses,” said Antitrust Division Chief Makan Delrahim. The department and state attorneys general from Virginia, Pennsylvania and Illinois filed a civil antitrust lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to block the deal, along with a settlement proposal. Delrahim's ”pleased” to have reached a solution through “good faith settlement talks.” Without the divestitures, the deal could have resulted in higher retransmission consent fees in the 13 markets, including Grand Rapids, Michigan; Richmond, Virginia; and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Nexstar didn't comment.
The FCC’s revamped FM translator rules will take effect Aug. 13, says a notice set for Wednesday’s Federal Register (see 1905090053). Several entities filed petitions for reconsideration of those rules, says another notice for Wednesday’s FR, and the LPFM Coalition is seeking a stay (see 1907290064). Oppositions to the petitions for reconsideration are due Aug. 15, the FR said.
The FCC has “an obligation to explain exactly” the reasoning for proposed regulatory fee increases for broadcasters, said NAB in a meeting Monday with an aide to Chairman Ajit Pai, according to an ex parte filing Tuesday in docket 19-105 (see 1906250035). Proposed increases to fees for satellite broadcast stations don’t reflect the resources the FCC devotes to their activities, and a new population-based calculation will raise fees for VHF TV stations, NAB said. Fees for VHF stations “should be based on their contour pursuant to their original technical parameters following the DTV transition,” NAB said.
Comment deadlines for the FCC NPRM on equal employment opportunity enforcement were extended from Aug. 21 to Sept. 20, said an order posted Tuesday in docket 19-177 (see 1906240028). Reply comments were extended to Nov. 4. The extension was granted after an unopposed request from the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council, the order said.
NAB objections to the LPFM Coalition’s request for a stay of the FCC’s new FM translator interference rules should be rejected, the coalition said in a response filing Monday in docket 18-119 (see 1907160066). “This is not a re-litigation of settled policy debates, as NAB claims, but a genuinely justiciable complaint about serious statutory and Constitutional issues,” the LPFM Coalition said. NAB argued that the coalition’s petition for reconsideration is unlikely to be granted on the merits and that the public interest would be served by denying the stay. “If NAB had serious grounds to oppose the stay based on public interest criteria, it would have done so. Instead, it simply argues that the Rulemaking is fine policy that should not be subject to a stay,” the coalition said. The FCC “should grant a stay quickly -- and do so before the Rulemaking’s rapidly approaching mid-August effective-date arrives,” said the LPFM Coalition.
The FCC Media Bureau and the Incentive Auction Task Force canceled Auction 104, the FCC’s planned auction of mutually exclusive low-power TV and translator construction permits from the post-incentive auction displacement window, said a public notice Monday. “MB’s Video Division has accepted and approved dismissal requests or settlement proposals resolving the mutual exclusivity for all of the available permits,” the PN said. “Consequently, there is no need to conduct bidding in this auction.”
With iHeartMedia aggregate foreign voting potentially hitting 70.5 percent and its foreign equity potentially reaching 63.9 percent, it petitioned for FCC declaratory ruling allowing up to 100 percent aggregate foreign investment. A filing posted Friday also asked for authorization for partial ownership by foreign entities Pimco and Invesco. The broadcaster said approval would give it more flexibility to accept foreign investment, which would level the playing field between it and competitors not subject to such Communications Act restrictions.
An FCC order on emergency alert system testing and false alerts adopted a year ago (see 1807120059) is in effect, with OMB OK, the commission said in Tuesday's Federal Register. It requires communications providers report false alerts and changes to EAS equipment to reject alerts that don’t have necessary digital signatures or are incorrectly timed.
A nationwide test of the emergency alert system will be held Aug. 7, as expected (see 1907170066), beginning at 2:20 p.m. EDT, the FCC and the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Wednesday. The test will be sent to television and radio stations.