FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai urged the commission to repeal the sports blackout rule at its Sept. 30 meeting. The government shouldn’t intervene in the marketplace “to help sports leagues enforce their blackout policies,” he said in an op-ed on Gannett-owned Cincinnati.com (http://cin.ci/1uMG6q0). He rejected arguments from rule advocates that leagues might televise their games only on cable or satellite TV, saying the leagues’ contracts with over-the-air broadcasters are enduring. By moving games to pay-TV, “the NFL would be cutting off its nose to spite its face,” he said. While leagues would remain free to negotiate deals with broadcasters and pay distributors to enforce the blackout policy without the rule, “taking the government’s thumb off team owners’ side of the scale would create momentum for a more accessible sports experience,” he said. There’s broad support for lifting the sports blackout rule, “and the FCC appears ready to accommodate that wish,” said public interest attorney Andrew Jay Schwartzman. In proposing to repeal the rule, the FCC took the view that the goal of Congress in requiring the open video systems and direct broadcast satellite blackout rules was to achieve parity with cable, he said in a Benton Foundation blog post (http://bit.ly/1uBhmmg). If the commission were to repeal the cable rule, “it would fulfill the congressional goal of parity by repealing the other two rules as well,” he said.

Public TV organizations urged the FCC to revise its broadcast incentive auction rules to ensure that after the auction and repacking, “no community in the country will be left without noncommercial educational television service,” they said Monday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1m98qU3). The request from the Association of Public Television Stations, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS alters a request made previously by APTS that the FCC create an algorithm alerting it to a bid made by the last remaining public TV station in a market, which the commission rejected in its spectrum auction order (CD June 9 p2). The petition asks the FCC to allow an NCE station operating on a reserved channel “to relinquish all of its spectrum usage rights provided that at least one such station remains on-air in the community,” or that at least one reserved channel is preserved during the repacking process, the reconsideration petition said. This approach allows any station to voluntarily participate in the auction by permitting even the last licensee on a reserved channel to voluntarily enter into a channel sharing arrangement, move from the UHF band to the VHF band, “or relinquish its license as long as the reserved channel is preserved in the repacking process and made available to a new entrant,” it said.

The FCC seeks comment on petitions on channel substitution. Initial comments are due Oct. 14, replies Oct. 27, on whether WPXS Mount Vernon, Illinois, should substitute Channel 11 for Channel 21, the commission said Friday in a Federal Register notice (http://1.usa.gov/1tQ0Q39). The commission set the same comment period for the petition of WPXA-TV Rome, Georgia, to substitute Channel 31 for Channel 51, and for the petition of KPXE-TV Kansas City, Missouri, to substitute Channel 30 for Channel 51, it said in other Federal Register notices (http://1.usa.gov/1uLMmOI) (http://1.usa.gov/ZjEgDk). The agency had previously released NPRMs on the channel change requests.

The FCC Media Bureau admonished two Texas TV stations for failing to comply with the limits on commercial matter in children’s programming. KRIS-TV Corpus Christi and KXAN-TV Austin displayed the website www.lazytown.com during the closing credits of the kids’ program, LazyTown, the bureau said Thursday in separate letters to the station licensees, KXAN and KVOA Communications (http://bit.ly/1rYmDps) (http://bit.ly/1CX00nZ). The violation described in the stations’ license renewal applications “appears to have been an isolated occurrence,” the bureau said.

NAB is gearing up to “go head-to-head with the record labels” at the Copyright Royalty Board over digital performance rights, said NAB CEO Gordon Smith at the opening of the 2014 NAB Radio Show Wednesday. NAB is working to convince the CRB “that they should set the rate at a level that encourages broadcasters to stream,” when the rates are reset in 2015, Smith said. NAB is also weighing in at the FCC on the possible expansion of online public file requirements, he said. “NAB has explained to the Commission that it is likely to be much more difficult, especially for small radio stations, to upload and continually update the public file.” Broadcasters should be “bullish” about the future of radio, Smith said. No other medium has broadcasting’s connection to local communities, Smith said. He said NAB’s support of an app that provides FM radio over smartphones -- called NextRadio -- is part of the association’s effort to provide a future for radio. NAB Labs is also testing the “all-digital mode of iBiquity’s AM digital radio system,” Smith said. “We have now conducted field tests of this system at seven different stations and are conducting lab testing as well.” The results are “encouraging,” Smith said Wednesday, according to prepared remarks released by the association (http://bit.ly/1lYwIjJ).

Six lawmakers praised the FCC for scheduling a vote on an order to eliminate the sports blackout rule. The notion that the fear of a blackout compels fans to attend games “is inconsistent with the experience in the communities we represent,” said Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Cory Booker, D-N.J., Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and John McCain, R-Ariz., along with Rep. Brian Higgins, D-N.Y., in a letter dated Wednesday to Chairman Tom Wheeler (http://1.usa.gov/1rNKGRZ). Fans attend NFL games “because viewing at home is no substitute for the game day experience in and around the stadium,” they said. While the decision to end blackouts is ultimately up to the NFL and TV networks, federal rules shouldn’t encourage such an outdated and insulting policy, they said. The order is expected to get a unanimous approval by the commission this month (CD Sept 11 p2). But repeal of the rule would function like a regressive tax, “imposing the greatest burden on Americans who are most vulnerable to rising cable bills,” said Hal Singer, a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute. Wheeler intimates that by rescinding the rule, local blackouts could be wiped out, Singer said in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1ACTZst) in response to Wheeler’s USA Today op-ed (CD Sept 10 p19). Eliminating the rule would change the value of the package of Sunday daytime football telecasts for broadcasters, said Singer, who submitted economic testimony for the NFL in the proceeding. With exclusivity, “the telecast rights are worth a lot less to the broadcasters,” he said. It’s naive for policymakers to assume that the NFL, or any firm, will do anything but engage in profit-maximizing behavior, he said.

Rainbow PUSH Coalition’s application for review of the Sinclair/Allbritton Communications TV station deal doesn’t raise any new issues and is a “stale rehash” of “unfounded allegations,” said Sinclair in an opposition filing Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1BsM979). “Rainbow PUSH can’t take no for an answer.” Though Rainbow PUSH argued in its application (CD Aug 26 p16) that Sinclair improperly controls its partner in several sharing arrangements Cunningham Broadcasting, Rainbow PUSH’s arguments are “without any factual support,” Sinclair said. Cunningham wasn’t a party to Sinclair/Allbritton, and the executives named in the application no longer work there, Sinclair said. The Media Bureau “has previously concluded that all of the allegations made by Rainbow PUSH are without merit.” The application for review provides no new facts and is “nothing more than a waste of Commission resources,” Sinclair said. It should be dismissed, Sinclair said.

Two Los Angeles public TV stations agreed to enter into a channel sharing arrangement to participate in the incentive auction, said KCET Los Angeles parent public media organization KCETLink (http://bit.ly/1qGssWh). KCET will share spectrum with KLCS Los Angeles, one of the participants in the FCC channel sharing pilot program earlier this year. “We will certainly benefit from KLCS’ test program and appreciate the station’s leadership,” said Al Jerome, KCETLink’s CEO. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said the arrangement “pleased” him, in a released statement. “It’s a compelling opportunity for broadcasters to continue their existing business on a shared channel, and take home a check for the spectrum they relinquish in the incentive auction,” he said. The stations will share a single broadcast channel and offer up 6 MHz of spectrum to be sold in the auction, the release said. Both KCET and KLCS will continue to operate under separate noncommercial, educational TV broadcast licenses, said the release. Other broadcasters should give channel sharing “careful consideration,” Wheeler said.

Rentrak added five more ABC-owned TV stations that will use its Advanced Demographics ratings information. Rentrak already has agreements with CBS, Fox and NBC, it said Tuesday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1uHoOus). Sixty-four percent of network-owned stations are Rentrak clients, it said. The new ABC stations are WABC-TV New York, KABC-TV Los Angeles, WLS-TV Chicago, WPVI-TV Philadelphia and WTVD Raleigh-Durham, Rentrak said.

NAB’s legal challenge of an FCC Media Bureau public notice announcing processing guidelines for deals involving TV broadcaster sharing arrangements was dismissed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. NAB’s petition for review was dismissed because the PN was issued on delegated authority, and should have been challenged at the commission-level before being brought to the court, said a D.C. Circuit order. To obtain judicial review of an order issued by FCC staff pursuant to delegated authority, the association was required to fulfill the “condition precedent” of filing an application for review by the FCC of the bureau’s decision, and to wait until the FCC ruled on the application, the order said. The difficulty of obtaining judicial review of the processing guidelines was likely why they were issued under delegated authority, industry attorneys had told us (CD March 14 p9). Since the FCC has to vote to hear applications for review of bureau-level decisions, they can be indefinitely stalled, the attorneys said. NAB had argued that several letters filed with the FCC asking it to review the processing guidelines were a sufficient stand-in for an application for review (CD June 5 p16) but the court disagreed. Because of the dismissal, a motion from Prometheus Radio Project and other groups to consolidate the case with the other sharing arrangement proceedings was declared moot in the same order. Associated court challenges by the NAB to the FCC’s rules for attributing joint sales agreements and by Prometheus to the closing of the 2010 quadrennial review remain active, said Georgetown Law Institute for Public Representation Senior Counselor Andrew Schwartzman, who represents Prometheus.