Triveni Digital will offer ATSC 3.0 starter kits for low-power TV stations at the April 23 LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition Repack Rally, the company said in a news release: They are "designed to bring broadcasters up to speed with the new broadcast television standard and ecosystem in a real-world environment." The kits include a quality assurance system, ROUTE/MMTP encoder and live source simulator. ”LPTV stations will play a big role in ATSC 3.0," said Triveni Vice President-Sales and Marketing Ralph Bachofen. "Whether an LPTV plans to share frequency as a light house or provide advanced local services, such as hyperlocal ads or emergency alert messaging, ATSC 3.0 will bring new life to broadcast.” Triveni Chief Science Officer Rich Chernock chairs ATSC's Technology Group 3, which is supervising the framing of ATSC 3.0.

NASA will produce a live 4K video stream from the International Space Station (ISS) during NAB April 26, it announced. The panel is co-produced by NAB Show, NASA and Amazon Web Services, the agency said Tuesday. The live feed from 250 miles above Earth will be encoded using AWS Elemental software on ISS and at Johnson Space Center in Houston. The 10:30 a.m. PDT event will be available for multiscreen viewing in live 4K and down-converted HD video, NASA said.

No one can deny TV is changing and that services like YouTube, Netflix and Amazon are driving “much of this change,” Digital UK CEO Jonathan Thompson said in prepared remarks for delivery Wednesday before a Broadcasting Press Guild media briefing in London. “But new technology alone cannot dictate the future of television,” said Thompson, whose company runs the Freeview over-the-air TV platform that reaches 19 million U.K. homes. “If it did, we’d all be watching 3D TV.” The industry needs to be “a bit more skeptical about some of the big claims we hear about OTT leading to the death of broadcast television,” he said of over-the-top services. “We should be less willing as an industry to adopt the Silicon Valley view of the world based on flimsy evidence and half-truths. We should be wary of big claims when coupled with a lack of transparency over audience figures and instead focus on real world evidence of what viewers are actually doing. Even the much talked about millennials who have fully embraced the on-demand world are still watching more live TV than anything else. All the evidence points to a blend of viewing behaviours and technologies for the foreseeable future and we should be planning content strategies and networks which will meet that need.”

The FCC doesn't have authority to modify the national ownership cap, and even if it did, it would be "arbitrary and capricious to leave a concededly obsolete and irrational policy in place on the assumption that it prejudges the outcome of a future proceeding, likely to be voted upon by a newly composed 5 member Commission," said Common Cause, the United Church of Christ and Georgetown Law Institute for Public Representation in a meeting with an aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn Friday, according to an ex parte filing in docket 13-246. Since it's not clear the future proceeding will end with a changed national cap, the commission shouldn't restore the technically obsolete UHF discount, they said. "It is entirely possible that once the Commission obtains and examines the record of this as-yet to be initiated proceeding, a majority will ultimately conclude that the national ownership cap cannot and/or should not be modified," said the filing. "The notion of leaving ownership rules in place pending the outcome of a future rulemaking is inconsistent with established Commission ownership waiver policies." The FCC is expected to restore the UHF discount at commissioners' April 20 meeting (see 1703300066).

The FCC Media Bureau proposed a $20,000 fine for a San Francisco non-commercial educational station over repeated public file violations, said a notice of apparent liability released Tuesday. Minority Television Project’s NCE KMTP-TV San Francisco “apparently willfully and/or repeatedly violated” requirements that program and donor lists be placed in its electronic public file, and hasn’t provided an explanation, the NAL said. The violations were discovered when the station applied for a license renewal in 2014, the NAL said.

The FCC should vacate its order loosening the siting restrictions for FM translators, Prometheus Radio Project said in a petition for reconsideration of the FCC’s February order filed Monday, the effective date of the new siting rules. Prometheus had previously requested a stay of that effective date, but the day came and went with no FCC response to the stay request, a Media Bureau spokeswoman confirmed. “Countless incumbent LPFM stations that are outside the core service area of AM stations will now be severely limited when seeking to relocate within their communities of service because new and relocated FM translators will inevitably box in or short-space them,” Prometheus said in the petition. NAB and several broadcast attorneys opposed the Prometheus petition (see 1704070070). Along with reconsidering the removal of the restriction that translators must be within 40 miles of their transmitter, the FCC should issue a new Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on adequately protecting LPFM stations from being boxed in by FM translators, the petition said.

The FCC draft item eliminating the need for noncommercial educational broadcasters to collect personal identification information from board members (see 1703300066) will still mean those stations need to survey potential board members for other broadcast interests, said Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford in a blog post Friday. Under the draft, such individuals will need to use the same Special Use FCC Registration Number (SUFRN) for all broadcast interests, and if they have a regular FRN from owning an interest in a commercial station, they will need to use that in the NCE station’s ownership report, Oxenford said. “Noncommercial licensees thus will still need to survey their officers and board members to make sure that they don’t have other broadcast interests, and to coordinate with other licensees in state systems to make sure that the same SUFRN is used.”

A Prometheus Radio petition challenging new FCC FM translator siting rules doesn’t spell out how the rule will limit low-power FM stations, said Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford in a blog post, a copy of which was emailed Thursday. “The new rules do not increase the permitted power of translators or in any other way significantly change their preclusive effect,” Oxenford said. “Who is to say whether a translator will impose greater restrictions on LPFMs from their current locations or from locations authorized under the new rules?” For Prometheus to get its requested stay of the April 10 effective date of the translator rule, it needs to show there will be irreparable harm, that the stay is in the public interest, and that it’s likely to win its appeal, Oxenford said. Even if the stay isn’t granted, AM stations will have to act knowing “the theoretical possibility that any construction permit granted in reliance on the new rules could be overturned if the appeal is successful, and weigh with their counsel the likelihood of this risk arising when constructing new translators in reliance on these rules,” Oxenford said. Earlier this week, another radio lawyer was critical of the request (see 1704050065).

Raycom Media will buy WVUE-DT New Orleans from Louisiana Media Co., owned by New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson, said Raycom in a news release Tuesday. Raycom has “managed the station for Louisiana Media Company,” since 2013, it said. Raycom said it plans to continue its partnership with him and his team.

A New York City radio station agreed to a $10,000 settlement with the FCC Media Bureau over indecency violations, said a consent decree released Wednesday. The allegations against WSKQ(FM) involve Spanish phrases the station argued were mistranslated. “To resolve the matter without further expenditure of scarce resources, the Bureau and Licensee have negotiated this Consent Decree to provide for Licensee to pay a civil penalty in the amount of $10,000 and for the Bureau to terminate its Investigation,” said the order. The Parents Television Council praised the settlement, in a release. “We are heartened that the FCC under its new chairman, Ajit Pai, has moved so quickly to establish its commitment to enforcing the broadcast indecency law,” PTC said. “While we would have preferred to have the FCC adjudicate this case on its merits, clearly the enforcement bureau deemed the complaint worthy of action,” said PTC President Tim Winter.