The FCC should study the effect of the incentive auction and repacking on low-power TV and translators, enact policies to help those stations get through the repacking, and ask Congress for legislation to allow flexible use of LPTV spectrum and an application window to upgrade to Class A status, said several LPTV group owners in a meeting Tuesday with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, the Incentive Auction Task Force, Office of Engineering and Technology, and the Media Bureau, said the LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition newsletter. An ex parte filing describing the meeting wasn't available Wednesday. The LPTV groups involved included Edge Spectrum, DTV America, Syncom Media, Prism TV, Cocola Broadcasting, Videohouse and Major Market Media. The coalition gave Pai and staffers a detailed inventory of the various LPTV industry segments, and how the auction and displacement process have affected them. Included were discussions about the future of the industry, a new Class A window and a path toward a "new, targeted flexible use future,” said coalition Director Mike Gravino in the newsletter. Gravino said it has been over a decade since the LPTV industry met with an FCC chair.

Digital advertising income for U.S. radio stations increased by 14 percent in 2016, said BIA/Kelsey in a release. All-news WTOP(FM) Washington was the top revenue-generating station, with $67.5 million in ad sales. “The news-talk category experienced an overall improvement in 2016, likely due to the presidential year,” BIA/Kelsey said. Overall industry over-the-air radio advertising revenue “stayed relatively flat” at close to $14.1 billion, the researcher said. In 2017, radio industry revenue will reach $14.9 billion, the firm said. Radio merger and acquisitions likely will be more prevalent in 2017, the firm said. “With the February announcement that Entercom and CBS Radio will be combined into one company, after regulatory approval, the industry will experience renewed activity due to the sale and realignment in some markets,” it said. “By 2021 we expect radio to surpass newspapers and become the fifth largest media category among advertisers," Chief Economist Mark Fratrik said.

The agreement between Sinclair’s One Media 3.0 and chipmaker Saankhya Labs, announced Tuesday, to “fast-track” development of ATSC 3.0 receiver chipsets is expected to bear market-ready “mobile-first” components “in less than a year,” Mark Aitken, Sinclair vice president-advanced technology, told us. The software-defined-radio chipsets Saankhya will design and build under the “technical leads” of Sinclair and One Media 3.0 will be “multi-standard” components,” Aitken said. “It’s not just a chip for ATSC 3.0.” It’s a chip that “quite literally” will support “all the broadcast standards globally,” due to “its nature as a software-defined chipset,” he said. “There are parts of the world where we see opportunities for ATSC 3.0 to flourish, and so the support of multiple standards is important.” The chipsets also will be designed out of the gate for “a mobile-first implementation,” Aitken said. “The chip is being designed based upon the requirements of handheld and portable devices that have very tight power management, space management kind of constraints.” By comparison, “the chips that Samsung and LG are in hot pursuit of are chips that were designed for television sets and set-top boxes, where there are not these kinds of constraints,” he said.

The potential investments in newspapers blocked by the newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership ban are more important now that newspapers face the challenge of “fake news,” said the News Media Alliance in a letter to the FCC posted in docket 14-50 Tuesday. “Social media platforms have the global scale to attract the advertising dollars on which newspapers used to rely,” said NMA. “Without any prohibition on investment, newspapers would finally have a fair chance to achieve the scale necessary to compete in the digital space.” Without the ban, broadcasters could invest in newspapers and combine with them on digital ventures that would be attractive to advertisers, NMA said. The FCC should grant NAB’s petition for reconsideration of the 2014 quadrennial review of ownership rules, NMA said. “Real, reputable, and trusted news content is the true remedy to fake news.”

There’s “little reason” to maintain AM/FM subcaps, and the main studio rule should be eliminated or severely modified, Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said Tuesday in a speech at the Radio Ink Hispanic Radio Conference. O’Rielly also highlighted pirate radio enforcement (see 1703280074) The radio industry has “made a compelling case” that the subcap limits “no longer make any sense,” O’Rielly said. Even if larger AM station owners “exited, opting for FM stations" after the rule change, "it would only increase the chances for new entrants, like Hispanic radio and others, to serve diverse and niche populations,” he said. “Since minority ownership has been one of the biggest obstacles to modernizing our media ownership rules in the eyes of some, isn’t this potentially a good thing?” He said the FCC should look at “raising the overall ownership caps within a market.” The main studio rule is among several “archaic” rules faced by radio stations, and is no longer relevant now that all radio public file requirements have been moved online, he said. On the post-incentive auction repacking affecting radio stations, he said: “Collocation of radio and TV transmission facilities is a common situation, so as we get into the nuts and bolts of repacking, rest assured that I will keep your concerns in mind and work toward an outcome that minimizes the impact on TV and radio stations alike.” O’Rielly acknowledged in his remarks that the 2017 Hispanic Radio Conference has been called the most important ever held, a point his written remarks footnoted to a Radio Ink article on how the Trump administration’s immigration policies could adversely affect Hispanic radio advertisers and listeners. “In all fairness, I only have so much control within my own universe, so I hope you will forgive me for not commenting on other topics,” O’Rielly said of the matter.

The value of FM translators is “seriously diminished” by permitting amendments to the FM table of allotments that don’t account for translators, said Media One in a pair of filings in dockets 13-249 and 16-442 Monday. “This clearly conflicts with the ultimate goal of the AM Revitalization Program -- which is to ensure the viability of the AM service in the face of newer technologies in order to guarantee that AM broadcasters continue to serve the public interest,” Media One said. Broadcasters said last year the influx of new translators for AM stations could cause conflicts with full-power FMs (see 1611040051). Media One will face “financial hardship” if the translator for its WRNE (AM) Gulf Breeze, Florida, is bumped by broadcaster Northwest Florida Media, it said. “MediaOne has invested some $70,000” in the threatened translator, the filings said. “MediaOne understands that there is very little that can be done if someone ever wants to take away Media One's FM translator by petitioning to amend the FM Table of Allotments," the filing said. Northwest Florida Media didn’t comment.

The FCC should take “a hard look” at AM/FM subcaps as it considers NAB’s reconsideration petition of the 2014 quadrennial review and associated ownership rules, said Dick Broadcasting in a letter posted in docket 14-50 Friday. “Changes within terrestrial radio have mitigated the difference between FM and AM service originally justifying the subcaps,” the firm said. "In its ownership order retaining the subcaps, the Commission mischaracterized or ignored record evidence of the impact of such changes,” Dick Broadcasting said. It said the agency should “now reevaluate the AM/FM subcaps in light of the new media landscape.”

The full FCC approved a $45,000 settlement for a Detroit Class A station that repeatedly violated children’s TV requirements, said a consent decree in Friday's Daily Digest. WLPC-CD improperly reported “and/or failed to air” the required weekly total of three hours of kids' programming between 2008 and 2013. The station didn’t include numerous required documents in its public file. WLPC’s license will be renewed for two years, during which it must pay the $45,000 settlement, $10,000 of which is due within 30 days of the effective date of the decree.

“NextGen TV Hub” will be the name of an exhibit planned for next month’s NAB Show to showcase ATSC 3.0 “benefits and capabilities,” ATSC said in a Wednesday announcement. A highlight of the exhibit in the Grand Lobby of the Las Vegas Convention Center will be beaming Ultra HD programming from KLSV-LD Las Vegas on Nevada's Black Mountain to an LG 4K TV with a built-in ATSC 3.0 tuner, it said. ATSC is teaming with CTA and NAB to sponsor the exhibit, which also will have the support of LG, Pearl TV, Sinclair and others, the announcement said. The NAB Show exhibit floor opens April 24 for a four-day run.

NAB backed a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling Tuesday against FilmOn X streaming broadcast programming, in a case by Comcast's NBCUniversal, ABC, CBS, Fox and others (see 1703210023). "The court reached the correct conclusion as supported by NAB’s amicus brief,” a spokesman told us Wednesday. The big four networks are NAB members, he noted.