Five broadcast TV groups collaborated to create a live-streaming and on-demand service for local newscasts called NewsOn, Cox Media said in a release Tuesday. NewsOn is a joint venture formed by ABC, Cox, Hearst Television, Media General and Raycom. The free service will be a downloadable application and gives users the ability to watch newscasts from any of the 112 participating stations, Cox said. The current participating stations are in 17 of the top 25 national TV markets, it said. Cox said NewsOn is expected to be available to the public by fall.

The FCC Office of General Counsel decided an NAB ex parte that was the subject of a complaint from the LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition was “adequate,” according to a letter from the OGC’s office reprinted by the coalition. NAB’s ex parte filing covered a meeting among FCC officials, NAB, public TV groups and wireless carriers, but didn’t fully explain the purpose of the meeting, coalition Director Mike Gravino said. “What advantage has now been given to NAB members and APTS [Association of Public Television] members? What do they know to do, to submit, to plan for, that the rest of us do not? Has the Incentive Auction proceeding been compromised?” asked Gravino in an email newsletter on the matter. According to the OGC letter received by Gravino, the meeting's purpose was “to encourage the private stakeholders present to confer among themselves (apart from the Commission) about the challenges associated with repacking and to see whether they could agree on measures that might address these challenges and serve the interests of both broadcasters and carriers,” the letter said. “Arguably, under these circumstances, there was no need to file an ex parte notice of the meeting at all,” the OGC letter said. The FCC and NAB declined to comment on Gravino’s complaints and the OGC letter. “What is the ‘secret deal’ which was struck between these sellers and buyers? Why are they the only ones to know about the secret deal, and party to the secret negotiations?” Gravino asked. “If the FCC suggested an ex parte needed to be filed, then that ex parte needed to have been done in the proper form of full disclosure, as we have pointed out in our complaint,” Gravino said. “It clearly was not, and now the Office of General Counsel is attempting to cover the tracks of the [Incentive Auction Task Force].”

The FCC 's Emergency Alert System (EAS) Sixth Report and Order puts improvements in the EAS system based on the 2011 nationwide EAS test into effect, said the order released Wednesday. “Our rules governing these alerts must continue to evolve as legacy networks and services transition to next generation technologies,” the order said. The order adopts “six zeroes” (000000) as the national location code “pertaining to every state and county in the United States,” and the order requires EAS participants to use equipment capable of processing the code. Participants must also use equipment “capable of processing a National Periodic Test (NPT) event code for future nationwide EAS tests” so future national, regional, state and local activations are consistent, the order said. Test data must now be filed in an Electronic Test Report System that was constructed to be “a practical, accessible, and minimally burdensome tool for recording EAS dissemination data,” the order said. The data will be used for developing an FCC Mapbook for illustrating how EAS alerts are propagated throughout the country. EAS participants are also required to ensure that EAS visual messages are “readable and accessible to all members of the public,” the order said.

The FCC Media Bureau granted Pandora's application to purchase KXMZ(FM) Box Elder, South Dakota, from Connoisseur Media over the objections of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), an order issued Tuesday said. The decision in Pandora’s favor has been expected since the commission issued a declaratory ruling allowing the deal to go forward without requiring Pandora to establish that it doesn’t have majority foreign ownership, said Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford, who represents seller Connoisseur Media. Though ASCAP had filed a petition to deny the application, the Media Bureau said it didn’t have the standing to do so. ASCAP’s standing argument is “too attenuated and speculative to demonstrate that ASCAP has suffered or will suffer an actual or imminent injury-in-fact as a result of the KXMZ(FM) transaction,” the order said. The Media Bureau instead treated ASCAP’s arguments as an informal objection, which was also rejected. “We find that ASCAP fails to establish a substantial and material question of fact that grant of the Application would be inconsistent with the public interest,” the order said. ASCAP has the option of filing a petition for reconsideration of the bureau-level decision, but it’s not clear if it will do so, an attorney familiar with the matter said. ASCAP didn't respond to a request for comment. The purchase of KXMZ is intended to allow Pandora to qualify for music rights at the same rates enjoyed by broadcasters, Pandora has said. To fulfill that part of its plan, Pandora will have to argue the matter before the Radio Music License Committee, copyright attorneys have told us.

The FCC Media Bureau and Brooks Broadcasting agreed to a $2,500 settlement over Brooks' station KPSO-FM Falfurrias,Texas, operating less than the minimum required hours, according to a consent decree issued Thursday. KPSO was ceasing its daily programming at 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday, the decree said.

The FCC needs to ensure that the incentive auction won't create “white areas” where there's no access to noncommercial educational broadcasting, said officials from the Association of Public Television Stations, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS in a meeting Tuesday with aides to Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Mike O'Rielly. The FCC has “the authority to reserve a portion of the public airwaves for noncommercial educational service and the obligation to continue doing so,” the public TV entities said in a filing in docket 12-268. “The Commission has never made the continued existence of noncommercial educational reserved spectrum subject entirely to market forces and cannot reverse this well-settled policy now.”

NAB Show organizers hired an independent research firm, Exhibit Surveys, of Red Bank, New Jersey, to verify attendance at the 2015 event by asking showgoers to self-certify in a one-question “yes” or “no” email questionnaire whether they actually made the trip to Las Vegas. “Your response is extremely important for the accuracy of this project,” said the canvassing email. “Our records indicate that you registered for the 2015 NAB Show which was held April 11-16 in Las Vegas. Please click on the link below to confirm whether or not you attended and to verify your registration demographics. If any information is incorrect or missing, please select the appropriate response.” The “preliminary registered attendance” was 103,042 for the 2015 NAB Show, organizers said in an announcement April 14, the third day of the show. “All numbers are based on pre-show and onsite registration and subject to an ongoing audit,” organizers said then.

Graham Holdings sold TheRoot.com, an online magazine focused on news, opinions, culture and entertainment from the perspective of African-Americans, to La Fabrica, a division of Univision Interactive Media, said Graham and Univision in news releases Thursday. The Root launched in 2008. The website's publisher was hired by Univision (see separate report below in this issue).

The FCC let WJAR, Providence, Rhode Island, move from Channel 51 to 50 (see 1504220033), a Media Bureau order said Friday. The change will nix any interference with a wireless licensee in the lower 700 MHz A block adjacent to Channel 51 in the Boston and Providence TV markets, it noted the broadcaster had said. That licensee had been identified as T-Mobile (see 1504270028). As with another station's channel change that was recently approved (see 1505200022), the bureau said that because of a May 29 pre-auction licensing deadline for TV stations, WJAR can switch once the order appears in the Federal Register.

NAB supports the FCC plan for determining TV incentive auction opening bids, except for the plan to include dynamic reserve pricing, association representatives told aides to the agency's members in separate meetings and conference calls last week, an ex parte filing said Friday in docket 12-268. “If prices are raised to unreasonably high levels the Commission may believe it is further justified in artificially suppressing reverse auction bids that otherwise should have been accepted.” The FCC should also remain flexible about consumer education requirements after the auction, NAB said. Repacked stations have every incentive to make certain their viewers know about channel changes in advance, and are in the best position to make decisions about how to educate their viewers, it said. The commission should let wireless mics operate in the duplex gap, and not repack TV stations there, NAB said. “While it may be inconvenient for unlicensed advocates, if the Commission has any interest in newsgatherers’ ability to do their job, wireless microphones must have some small exclusive home.”