Institutional Shareholder Services recommended against most of a slate of candidates for Tegna’s board supported by the broadcaster's largest shareholder Standard General (see personals section, this issue), Tegna said Friday. Tegna "shareholders should be concerned about the potentially heightened impact of boardroom dysfunction, given the current environment,” said ISS. Standard and Tegna each created websites backing their preferred board candidates (see 2003310054). Tegna disagreed with the ISS report’s recommendation of a single Standard supported candidate, Colleen Brown. The report recommends Brown as a check on the current board’s evaluation of future deals. “The TEGNA Board’s actions demonstrate that such a check is not necessary,” the TV station owner said. Standard released a statement Monday from its CEO Soohyung Kim blasting Tegna’s Q1 performance, with revenue of $684 million, up 32 percent year-over-year, as “disappointing.” “Even after years of under-performance, the Board refuses to acknowledge the need for change,” Kim said. Tegna CEO Dave Lougee called the performance “strong” in the Q1 release. The company suspended its 2020 guidance and 2021 preliminary outlook: “The full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly with regard to the broader advertising industry, remains uncertain.” Current leadership has “successfully managed through recessionary operating environments in the past, and we are confident that we are well equipped to successfully navigate the challenges that will come,” the Tegna release said.

Revise the low-power FM order set for Thursday’s meeting to include a timeline for sunsetting interference protections for channel 6 low-power TV stations (see 2004010063), NPR asked an aide to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, per a filing posted Friday in docket 19-193. The order should reflect “more balanced representation” of the record, and “correctly state” interference protections between LPTV and noncommercial educational FM stations, the public radio programmer asked. NPR is concerned case-by-case waiver of channel 6 interference rules may not provide relief for reserved band NCE FMs.

Entertainment Media Trust’s radio stations are off-air, EMT trustee Dennis Watkins told us in a brief interview. The stations went off the dial Friday, reported The Riverfront Times. EMT’s stations had been operating despite having their licenses canceled, after the company ceased participating in an FCC administrative law hearing on its renewal applications (see 2004020035). The St. Louis-area newspaper quotes radio host Bob Romanik -- who the FCC said was the actual decision-maker at EMT -- as saying the stations will broadcast again. Watkins told us EMT doesn’t have plans to resume broadcasting or seek an appeal of the hearing result. The Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council wants the FCC to use EMT’s licenses as a broadcast incubator (see 2003200068).

Entercom’s digital content radio.com hit a record 40 million monthly users in March, said a news release. The platform’s visitor base has more than doubled from the same time last year. Seventy percent of the streamers are ages 25-54, and 61% come from households with over $50,000 income.

Comments responding to the FCC NPRM on significantly viewed stations (see 2003310066) are due in docket 20-73 May 14, replies June 15, said a public notice Tuesday.

President Donald Trump's presidential campaign sued WJFW Rhinelander, Wisconsin, for repeatedly airing a commercial the campaign says uses misleading editing to make it seem that Trump called the coronavirus a hoax. The Priorities USA political action committee created the ad. “WJFW-NBC has perpetrated a fraud on the public by recklessly broadcasting PUSA’s defamatory and false advertisement,” reads the complaint filed Monday in Price County Circuit Court. The campaign previously sent broadcasters airing the ad a cease and desist letter (see 2003270063). The campaign seeks punitive damages and a jury trial. WJFW and the White House didn’t comment Monday.

NAB’s virtual stand-in for its canceled Las Vegas show is May 13-14, said the group Monday. Registration opens April 20 for the free NAB Show Express, which will offer on-demand content, online educational sessions and product exhibitions. Some sessions will replicate events that had been planned for the Las Vegas show, including President Gordon Smith’s annual address. There will be a channel dedicated to content from the Broadcast Engineering and Information Technology conference that was to have opened this weekend in Vegas. Express will feature three stand-alone “training and executive leadership events” with registration fees, the release said. The association canceled the annual show March 11, the day the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic (see 2003200039). Brightcove and Frequency Audio-Visual Services will be the enabling platforms for the online conference,

The waiver process for Channel 6 TV stations proposed in the draft low-power FM order set for the April 23 commissioners’ meeting (see 2004020062) needs notice and comment provisions, said Disney and subsidiary ABC in a letter posted Thursday in docket 19-193. The draft order would allow LPFM stations to seek waivers of requirements that they protect LPTV stations broadcasting on Channel 6. The proposed waiver process proposed doesn’t adequately ensure affected TV stations can evaluate interference ramifications of such waivers, the full-power broadcaster said: Without requirements affected TV stations get the opportunity to comment, Channel 6 TV stations would have to “affirmatively monitor FCC filings.”

The FCC Enforcement Bureau issued a notice of violation against Cumulus after KBED(AM) Nederland, Texas, operated above required power levels after sunset due to a faulty remote system. The notice said the station also had a damaged door at an antenna towers, which employees said was caused by flooding.

Broadcasters need no air announcements about their June 1 license renewal applications because of COVID-19, said the FCC Media Bureau. This "alleviate[s] administrative and compliance burdens,” allowing for more public service announcements and pandemic coverage, said Thursday's order. An FNPRM proposed eliminating the prefiling announcement requirement, and no commenters opposed that (see 1911190064). The order applies to those with licenses expiring in October. MB "will monitor the status of the COVID-19 outbreak to determine whether further relief is warranted.”