The FCC should do away with or relax rules requiring broadcasters to provide public notice of applications, NAB said Thursday in a meeting with Media Bureau staff, recounted a filing Tuesday in docket 17-264. The notices don’t generate public comments, so they're “unnecessary burdens,“ NAB said. If the FCC won’t eliminate notice requirements altogether, the agency should get rid of rules mandating that those notices be placed in newspapers and allow broadcasters to make “brief on-air announcements” that refer the audience to websites with additional information. The FCC’s notice rules also vary widely in length and frequency requirements, and should be standardized, NAB said.

Sinclair and Tribune will resubmit or amend parts of their application to transfer ownership of stations after a Feb. 28 call with Media Bureau staff, said an FCC filing posted Tuesday in docket 17-179. The call was at the request of FCC staff, the filing said. “Participants discussed FCC policies and procedures applicable to applications filed in connection with the proceeding,” Sinclair said. “The parties advised the FCC staff that they would resubmit or amend certain of those applications accordingly.”

PMCM’s reading of rules would cause “widespread disruption” and let TV stations demand cable carriage on their RF channel numbers, displacing stations using those slots, the FCC said in a brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. It's the latest salvo (see 1709280034) in PMCM’s battle to have its WJLP Middletown Township, New Jersey, assigned to virtual channel 3 after being relocated. Two longtime stations in the area use that channel. “Neither the FCC’s rules nor the must-carry statute compel such counterintuitive and counterproductive results,” the agency said Friday. It disagreed with the company's definition of terms in the rules such as channel and market, and argued that not assigning PMCM the channel it seeks is within “broad discretion” granted to the regulator.

A foreign broadcaster uploading copyrighted content onto its website and making it available for streaming to U.S. users is in violation of the Copyright Act, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said in a docket 17-7051 opinion Friday. The ruling affirmed a U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruling that Polish government-owned broadcaster Telewizja Polska was violating Spanski Enterprise's copyrights and awarded Spanski $3.06 million in statutory damages. The appellate court rejected Polska arguments it was the end users who selected which content to view who ultimately were responsible for any infringement. It also rejected Polska arguments that its failure to geo-blocking the content for which Spanski had exclusive North American rights happened in Poland and therefore claims of Copyright Act liability would be an impermissible extraterritorial application of the law. Polska outside counsel said the decision was being reviewed. Deciding were Circuit judges David Tatel, Thomas Griffith and Robert Wilkins, with Tatel penning the decision. Amicus briefs in favor of Spanski had come from the U.S. and from Disney, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Bros., RIAA, American Association of Independent Music and National Music Publishers' Association.

The FCC should act on interference between FM translators and full-power radio stations, said Beasley Media CEO Caroline Beasley in a meeting Tuesday with Media Bureau Audio Division Chief Al Shuldiner, said a filing posted in RM-11787 Thursday. Issue an “promptly” to allow more flexibility to resolve such complaints, the radio-station owner asked.

Liberty Media, through its SiriusXM operations, bought a portion of iHeartRadio corporate debt large enough to fund most of any iHeart restructuring it might pursue, Liberty CEO Greg Maffei said Thursday in an earnings call. He said Liberty Media sees "potentially substantial synergies" with Sirius in the form of shared personalities and cross promotions. FBN Securities analyst Robert Routh wrote investors that Liberty and Sirius XM -- of which Liberty has majority control -- combined are apparently considering a total investment of $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion that would have them each owning about 20 percent.

The FCC Media Bureau denied a request by the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council for an extension on comment deadlines for the incubator proceeding, said an order in Wednesday’s Daily Digest. MMTC sought the extension (see 1801180064) to give the FCC Advisory Committee on Diversity and Digital Empowerment time to approve and file comments in the proceeding. The deadline is March 9, and the full committee doesn’t meet until March 27. Chairman Ajit Pai in his talk at the committee’s first meeting cited the incubator as something for which he wanted committee input (see 1709250062). The MMTC request must be balanced against the need to act expeditiously on the incubator plan and the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals putting the legal challenge of the FCC’s quadrennial broadcast ownership review proceeding on hold in anticipation of the incubator proceeding, the order said. The committee’s work on the issue is “important” and its comments should be entered into the record “as soon as possible,” the order said.

The FCC Media Bureau will open a window March 14-28 for filing full FM translator new station construction permit applications for Auction 99 from 165 stations that were allowed to file partial forms -- called tech box proposals -- during the summer, said a public notice. The window is limited to such proposals that aren’t mutually exclusive with other proposals, Tuesday's PN said.

That Sinclair's list of stations to divest isn't final and is to be amended (see 1802210062) means the FCC and other parties lack the full and complete record needed to evaluate the transaction, said the Coalition to Save Local Media Monday. It urged the FCC shot clock be stopped until the broadcaster "proposed a credible plan" for complying with the ownership rules. Sinclair didn't comment.

Emmis agreed to sell its St. Louis-area stations KSHE(FM) Crestwood, Missouri, and KPNT(FM) Collinsville, Illinois, to Hubbard Radio for $45 million and KFTK(FM) Florissant, Missouri, and KNOU(FM) St. Louis to Entercom for $15 million, Emmis said Friday. It said the sales need FCC OK, are expected to close in the broadcaster's fiscal Q1 that a spokeswoman told us ends May 31, and local marketing agreements for the stations start Thursday. There had been agreements in principle for the transactions, the money from which will be used to repay term loans. Entercom sees its deal closing in calendar Q2 and Hubbard didn't comment.