U.S. station deal volume reached $5.1 billion in Q1, said S&P Global Market Intelligence: $236.8 million in radio and $4.86 billion in TV. “This is the largest quarterly deal volume since second quarter 2007." The largest TV deals included Nexstar’s planned $1.32 billion divestitures to E.W. Scripps and Tegna and equity fund Apollo Global Management buying stations from Cox and Northwest Broadcasting at $3.1 billion and $384 million respectively. Cumulus Media's $103 million sale of six radio stations to Educational Media Foundation accounted for much of the radio volume.

The FCC's draft order on FM translator interference could make it “extremely challenging” for large market stations to collect the required number of listener complaints to lodge a valid interference complaint, NAB said in meetings last week with aides to all five FCC commissioners and Media Bureau staff, per a filing posted Friday in docket 18-119. “Very few listeners are motivated to register a complaint about radio interference,” NAB said. Beasley, iHeartMedia and other broadcasters registered similar concerns last week (see 1905010162). The agency should return to the tentative conclusion proposed in the preceding NPRM that a minimum of six complaints would be sufficient, NAB said: If the FCC keeps the population-based complaint minimum, the number should be capped at 25 complaints. Radio executives Bayard Walters of the Cromwell Group and Ed Henson of Henson Media supported the population-based minimums in their own meetings with eighth-floor aides and Media Bureau staff last week, said a filing. “It made sense for the number of required complaints to be significantly different for Campbellsville, Kentucky, and New York City.” They also backed a 48 dBu contour instead of the proposed 45 dBu one, and eliminating the draft order's waiver for interference complaints outside the contour.

Broadcast intervenors repeated their challenges against the standing of the petitioners in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals case on the 2014 quadrennial review (see 1904300201), while the Multicultural Media Telecom and Internet Council and the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters jointly chided the FCC for unreasonable delay, in final (in Pacer) and reply (in Pacer) briefs posted through Friday. “Despite this Court’s admonitions and prodding, the Commission has repeatedly avoided promulgating a concrete plan that promotes minority and female broadcast ownership,” MMTC and NABOB said. The petitioners, which also include Prometheus Radio Project and Media Mobilizing Project, “failed to identify any member of their organizations that has standing, much less describe how any member has suffered a concrete and particularized injury,” said (in Pacer) industry intervenors, including NAB, Sinclair and Connoisseur Media. MMTC and NABOB said the FCC unreasonably delayed taking action on a proposal to apply cable procurement rules to broadcasting, which is part of the 2018 QR. The diversity groups also said the agency violated the Administrative Procedure Act with its incubator program by allowing broadcasters to receive rule waivers in “comparable markets.” No party “commented on or advocated a switch to the comparable market definition during the public comment period,” MMTC and NABOB said. The argument that “established broadcasters have an incentive to game the system is entirely speculative” and based on a misunderstanding, the broadcast intervenors said. “Race- and gender- based ownership considerations cannot overwhelm Congress’s specific statutory directive to consider competition.”

Sinclair will buy 21 regional sports networks and Fox College Sports from Disney, which acquired them when it bought most of the assets of 21st Century Fox (see 1901140039), said the companies Friday. The deal has a “total enterprise value” to the RSNs worth $10.6 billion, including the $9.6 billion purchase price, they said. The deal requires DOJ approval, they said. The RSNs changing hands excludes the YES Network, but is “the largest collection of RSNs in the marketplace today, with an extensive footprint that includes exclusive local rights to 42 professional teams” in baseball, basketball and hockey, they said. The RSNs collectively had $3.8 billion revenue and 74 million subscribers in 2018. Sinclair will buy them through a new Diamond Sports Group subsidiary, they said. “While consumer viewing habits have shifted, the tradition of watching live sports and news remains ingrained in our culture,” said Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley. “We are ideally positioned to transfer our skills to deliver and expand our focus on greater premium sports programming.” Antitrust regulators should reject the proposed deal, said America's Communication Association CEO Matt Polka. “Big 4 broadcast network programming and RSN programming are both critical for ACA Connects members,” Polka said. “By jointly negotiating these assets when they serve the same market, Sinclair can raise prices to cable operators for both offerings.”

A look into the FCC’s ATSC 3.0 commercial license application process will be a featured session during ATSC’s 2019 Next Gen TV Broadcast Conference May 29-30, said a preliminary agenda. “The hope is that the FCC will be ready to share more details" about the license application by the end of May, "but regardless we will preview the process,” emailed spokesperson Dave Arland Thursday. Lack of an FCC license application form to commercially deploy 3.0 services is a serious impediment for broadcasters, last month’s NAB Show was told (see 1904100043). The form may come before June, we were told there (see 1904080066). Other sessions planned for the ATSC conference include a “case study” from the Pearl TV-led model-market project in Phoenix on how stations can work with MVPDs in launching 3.0 services. Automotive uses for 3.0, which retiring ATSC President Mark Richer said in Las Vegas was an increasingly hot topic inside his standards organization, will be another conference session, as will a look into “branding plans” for 3.0. “Your Guide to an ATSC 3.0 Station Transition” is the theme of Day 1, “Ramping Up for the 2020 Launch” for Day 2.

Draft FM translator order rules on the minimum number of complaints required for a full-power FM station to lodge an interference complaint against an FM translator are arbitrary and disadvantage large stations (see 1904180063), said Beasley Media and iHeartMedia in FCC filings posted Wednesday. The order would tie the minimum number of complaints to the population served by the complaining full-power station, with the number required ranging from three for low-power FM stations to 65 for the largest full-power FMs. By basing the requirement on the population served by the full power, that could make it impossible for large stations to find enough complaints, Beasley and iHeart wrote commissioners and told Media Bureau staff, now in docket 18-119. “Basing the number of required complaints on the population being served by the complaining station divorces the required number of complaints from the actual interference.” A station with a highly populated coverage area that experiences interference in a sparsely populated area “may be unable to find enough listeners in that interference area,” said the companies. Tie the number of complaints to the area where interference is occurring, and cap it at 25, they said. Though the draft order also didn’t follow the broadcasters’ recommendations for a 42 dBu contour, Beasley and iHeart said that, outside the complaint issue, the agency has “an exemplary job” balancing between translators and full powers. If the FCC changes the complaint minimums, "set a workable path for the prompt and fair resolution of FM translator interference complaints,” the radio-station owners asked. Bonneville International, iHeart Communications and the Educational Media Foundation also wrote a letter to all five commissioners objecting to questions raised by REC Networks about how the FM translator interference draft order would interact with "super-maximum" class B stations (see 1904250055). "REC’s request goes far beyond the issues proposed in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in this proceeding and would also result in upsetting established listener expectations," the joint letter said. REC had suggested the interference rules for the high-powered, grandfathered Class B FM stations wouldn't calculate such station's interference limit using their maximum range, but instead the range of other stations in their class. "Such an action would be contrary to the mission of the Commission’s rules in protecting the reception of existing stations’ service to people in populated areas from potential interference caused by secondary stations," the joint letter said. "The NPRM in this proceeding did not suggest any special treatment of super-power FM stations, nor did the Draft Order." In its own letter to the FCC on translator interference, the New Jersey Broadcasters Association urged the FCC to postpone the planned May 9 vote on the interference order and "extend the time period in which to file further responses by 30 days." NJBA wants a 40 dbU contour and a maximum of 12 complaints. New Jersey broadcasters have historically dealt with unfair allocations of frequencies, compared with New York and Pennsylvania, and that issue "should not be exacerbated by new rule changes that would negatively impact our broadcasters and the audiences," the group said.

The FCC should let low-power TV stations with mutually exclusive (MX) applications filed during the post-incentive auction LPTV displacement window (see 1903290048) avoid auction if they can “reach a legal or engineering settlement before the short form application deadline,” said Word of God Fellowship, licensee of KDTS-LD San Francisco, in replies in docket 19-61. KDTS is an MX group slated for the displacement auction. Recent Media Bureau actions clarified which LPTV stations will be mutually exclusive, putting Word of God and the other stations in its MX group in position to negotiate a settlement, the broadcaster said. “Nevertheless, a three-way negotiation that potentially pertains to the permanent use of a channel remains a complex endeavor that will take weeks, if not months, to fully resolve.” The FCC “should encourage private resolution of mutual exclusivity by providing a new settlement window” or declaring it won’t require an auction if all parties to an MX group submit a valid settlement before the short-form deadline, Word of God said. Another licensee with stations slated for the auction, Venture Technologies Group, said the agency should ensure the validity of applications in the auction and prevent collusive negotiations between participants.

Broadcaster objections to the anticonsolidation petitioners challenging the 2014 quadrennial review in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals filing supplemental evidence of their standing (see 1904230018) are based “entirely on inapplicable D.C. Circuit case law,” said a reply brief (in Pacer) by several petitioners, including Prometheus Radio Project and Free Press. “Case law in other circuits supports acceptance,” of the additional evidence, they said. The Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council and the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters responded (in Pacer) as well. They said many of the broadcast intervenors -- which include Connoisseur Media, Sinclair and Fox -- hadn’t filed comments on the FCC incubator program or diversity proposals at issue. That “void” suggests the harm broadcast intervenors claim would happen if the incubator rule is vacated “was not considered sufficiently injurious to warrant bringing it to the FCC’s attention,” MMTC and NABOB said. Also this week, stakeholders commented on the current FCC QR proceeding (see 1904300196).

The FCC is evaluating creation of a C4 FM class and a proposed waiver that would grant similar relief to existing stations, FCC aides told C4 FM advocate and SSR Communications CEO Matthew Wesolowski in meetings and calls last week, he filed, posted Friday in docket 18-184. Comments on C4 are “still under evaluation” staff told Wesolowski, he recounted. Advisers “signaled a willingness to consider” the waiver, the filing said. The C4 FM proposal has been considered on ice since it was put out for comment as a notice of inquiry, and FCC action on the matter isn’t expected soon, radio attorneys told us. SSR met officials with Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel, Mike O’Rielly and Geoffrey Starks.

The FCC draft FM translator interference order could lead to AM translators that currently receive no interference complaints being bumped off the air (see 1904180063), said Henson Media CEO Ed Henson in a letter posted Monday in docket 18-119. Many existing translators within the 45 dBu contour of a full-power station currently draw no complaints, but the FCC’s interference limit “might encourage full power stations to encourage complaints, knowing the complainant will not be challenged,” Henson said. The draft order’s procedures on complaints “seem to make it easier for a translator to be forced off the air without the full power station making a good faith and honest effort” to resolve the conflict, Henson said. It for a 48 dBu contour and objected to the draft order’s waiver procedure for lodging interference complaints outside the 45 dBu contour. “This waiver provision could be a Trojan Horse, which could take the teeth out of any limiting contour,” Henson said. “20 complaints from outside the 45 dBu contour would be a very low bar, especially in large metro areas, to trigger a waiver.”