It should be “unthinkable” for the FCC to reject diversity groups' calls for broad changes to equal employment opportunity rules, said Multicultural Media Telecom and Internet Council Senior Adviser David Honig in calls with Commissioners Brendan Carr and Jessica Rosenworcel, show filings for dockets including 18-23. The draft order on eliminating broadcaster midterm EEO reports doesn’t address the broad EEO reform requested by the diversity groups (see 1901030039) because it would involve “far-reaching substantive changes to the Commission’s EEO rules,” the draft said. “The NPRM’s focus was on improvements to EEO compliance and enforcement.” The agency shouldn’t reject a proposal for being “substantive and far-reaching enough to cure the horrible persistence of racial and gender discrimination in broadcasting,” Honig said. The “proper course of action” would be to issue the proposals out for more comment as a Further NPRM, he said. Since the EEO proposals are more than 15 years old, any further comment should be sought on an expedited schedule, Honig said. He rejected language in the order that would tout FCC transfer of EEO enforcement from the Media Bureau to the Enforcement Bureau and additional EEO audits as steps toward EEO change. That's no substitute for “anti-cronyism” EEO enforcement and data collection, Honig said. The commission didn't comment Friday.

Though CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus predicted at NAB Show New York that broadcasting live sports in 4K or 8K would take the same slow, methodical migration path as HD (see 1810170060), 4K and 8K cameras figure prominently in the network's plans to telecast the Super Bowl Feb. 3 from Atlanta, it said Thursday. In so doing, CBS will continue “its long tradition of introducing innovation and technology to the sports broadcasting industry at the Super Bowl,” including when in February 2004 it became the first to broadcast the Super Bowl pregame, game, halftime show and postgame show in HD. This year, for the “first time ever on any network” in the U.S., CBS will use “multiple” 8K cameras for the telecast, plus 16 cameras with 4K “capabilities,” it said. The 8K cameras will use a “unique, highly constructed engineering solution” to give viewers “dramatic close-up views of the action” from the end zones, it said. The “bonanza” of 4K cameras “will provide additional live game camera angles, and give the production the ability to replay key moments of the game in a super slo-motion and an HD cut-out with zoomed-in perspectives with minimal resolution loss,” said CBS. Its Super Bowl plans also include using a live, wireless handheld camera showing augmented-reality graphics and “up-close camera tracking on the field,” it said. “This will allow the camera to get closer to these virtual graphics in a way that gives viewers different perspectives and angles including never-before-seen field level views of these graphics.”

Sinclair, Korean carrier SK Telecom and car electronics maker Samsung's Harman signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly develop connected car technology based on ATSC 3.0., Sinclair announced Thursday. The companies will work together to build a platform that would allow drivers to receive in-vehicle HD broadcasting, firmware updates and map updates through Sinclair stations. “The technology will also be deployed in other geographies as local broadcast facilities become available,” the company said. The automotive platform and tech will be revealed at the NAB Show 2019, they said.

Another round of dealmaking in the broadcast TV industry (see 1901040047) following the success of Gray/Raycom and announcement of Nexstar/Tribune is expected in the first half of 2019, analyst Michael Kupinski wrote investors Wednesday. The radio industry is also expected to “get a nice bounce,” Kupinski said. Consolidation in general is expected in the digital and tech industries in 2019, Kupinski said.

DTS, Imax Enhanced and MediaTek will collaborate on an SoS system incorporating a streaming codec for 4K Imax Enhanced movies for delivery in second half 2019, they said Tuesday. TVs with DTS:X are compatible with any DTS content connected to the TV from HDMI, USB and over-the-top streaming services, said the Xperi subsidiary. The DTS:X system for TV has been adopted in the Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) spec for Europe, said the company at CES in Las Vegas.

Sinclair is establishing a joint venture with Korean mobile operator SK Telecom to develop broadcasting products for ATSC 3.0 in the U.S. and internationally, Sinclair announced Tuesday. The jointly funded and managed company begins in Q1. The commercial 3.0 offerings created by the joint venture are expected to hit the U.S. market in 2019. SK and Sinclair signed a memorandum of understanding at CES 2018 to work together on 3.0 technology. Sinclair's One Media disclosed launch of a “universal demodulator chip” that supports 3.0 tech for set-top boxes, TVs and “automotive and mobile applications." Saankhya Labs, VeriSilicon and Samsung Foundry also worked on the chips. Two versions were announced, for linear TV applications and for mobile and portable devices. “These mobile 3.0 chips validate the ‘sea change’ in over-the-air distribution of, not only television but all digital data,” said One Media President Mark Aitken.

An FCC-created demo webpage may have inadvertently caused broadcasters to violate online public file rules, Pillsbury Winthrop broadcast attorney Scott Flick blogged Tuesday. The webpage -- publicfiles-demo.fcc.gov -- was created in 2016 to show broadcasters how to file documents in their online public files, but broadcasters apparently have been mistaking it for the actual filing page, and filing their documents there, Flick said. “If it was a phishing site, it couldn’t have been better constructed,” Flick said in an interview. The page was taken down Tuesday after Flick’s post. An FCC spokesman told us the agency will work with broadcasters after the shutdown “to remedy any problems.” Before being removed, the page was the initial result on Google for “public inspection file,” and remained up even after the actual FCC inspection file database went offline because of the shutdown, Flick said. Flick heard about it after a broadcaster unaware the site was only a demo told him the FCC’s database was back online. “The website looked like the online Public File database in every respect,” Flick said, but showed uploads only through September. “Curiously, there is no hint anywhere on the demo webpage that it is just a demo and not the real online Public File database,” Flick said. The test site likely has led many broadcasters to think they uploaded their public files when they actually haven’t, he said. That could leave them vulnerable to thousands of dollars in fines, he said. The demo page also could be responsible for the FCC finding in December that over 1,000 radio stations hadn’t uploaded their required files, Flick said. Quarterly kidvid reports and issues program lists are due Thursday, and broadcasters will have to upload them to the correct database after the shutdown ends, Flick said.

Meredith is launching businesses in audio content, QR codes and direct-to consumer products, the company announced at CES Monday. The new unit is called Meredith Innovation Group, and includes Meredith Product Studio, the voice AI-focused-Meredith Voice Network, and Meredith Smart Codes, which uses QR codes on magazine pages to gather “ad performance and attribution data for advertisers,” said the broadcaster/publisher.

NPR estimates 53 million U.S. adults own at least one voice-activated smart speaker, and smart speakers owned through December increased 78 percent year over year, it said Monday. Edison Research canvassed 1,002 respondents by phone for NPR just after Christmas and found the average smart speaker home now owns 2.3 such devices, up 35 percent from an average 1.7 the same time last year, it said. Other findings: (1) 52 percent of all U.S. smart speaker owners report using their device daily; (2) an estimated 14 million people in the U.S. got their first smart speaker in 2018; (3) roughly 8 percent of the U.S. population took ownership of a smart speaker between Black Friday and New Year’s Eve.

Broadcasters are receiving phone calls from scammers posing as FCC officials during the federal shutdown, Pillsbury Winthrop broadcast attorney Scott Flick blogged. Callers claim to be collecting “FCC fees,” Flick said Friday. “The first of these calls that we heard about occurred within six hours of the FCC shutting down.” Scammers likely believe it will be hard for broadcasters to check with the FCC about the caller’s legitimacy with the shutdown in place, Flick said. Phone scammers often seek payment in gift cards, Flick said: The FCC “will not allow you to pay your regulatory fees with gift cards, and certainly doesn’t do it over the telephone.” He noted that people can't complain to the FTC during the impasse.