TVfreedom.org again put its support behind the Community Access Preservation Act. S-1789, also supported by the public, educational and government channel industry, is aimed at keep PEG channels afloat through cable franchising agreements (CD Jan 6 p6). Passage of the CAP Act “is fundamentally critical to the long-term sustainability of more than 5,000 PEG access channels operated by municipalities, educational institutions and nonprofit organizations nationwide,” TVfreedom.org member American Community Television said Tuesday in a news release. ACT joined the organization this month, it noted. TVfreedom.org submitted letters to the House and Senate subcommittees on Communications and Technology, it said. Congress should “preserve the current structure of the lifeline basic service tier, which today includes access to PEG channels and the full complement of local broadcast TV stations,” it said in the letters (http://bit.ly/WfS7cA) (http://bit.ly/1ynWAXZ).

The Advanced Television Broadcasting Alliance urged the FCC to undertake all reasonable efforts to preserve low-power TV and translator facilities to the greatest extent possible when planning and executing the broadcast spectrum incentive auction. In calculating the effects of LTE-into-DTV interference, the commission “must pay particular attention to the impact of LTE interference on LPTV and translator stations,” ATBA said in response to an FCC public notice (http://bit.ly/1sfkOTL). The latest public notice sheds little light on how the FCC will use the measurements to determine the technical rules and regulations that will eventually apply to inter-service sharing, it said. Until such rules are proposed, ATBA can only limit its observations on the methodology used to conduct the measurements and validity of data presented “but cannot adequately analyze the impact and use of such studies in developing inter-service policies and rules,” it said. Cohen Dippell, a broadcast engineering firm, told the FCC that further scrutiny of TV receiver performance is required. If the FCC anticipates an aggressive incentive auction whether or not a meaningful number of broadcasters surrender their spectrum, “this will result in a large number of broadcasters being reassigned to a new channel,” it said in comments (http://bit.ly/1noMHB6). With the repacking, the to-date unrecognized interference mechanism “may manifest itself in many new repacked stations’ reception as well as existing stations’ reception,” it said. “This will result in greater loss of service and does not meet the ‘all reasonable efforts’ provision.”

SoundExchange finds it “convenient” that Bunzel Media Strategies President Reed Bunzel’s Friday blog post (http://bit.ly/1jyYbas) (CD July 14 p17) is “based on a self-serving report [http://bit.ly/1nGf3Yl] commissioned by the NAB shortly following [SoundExchange President Michael] Huppe’s keynote” at a June seminar, said the performing rights organization in a statement Friday. “SoundExchange has always recognized that FM radio provides some value to individual artists, but it actually does little to grow the overall pie for the recorded music industry,” it said. “SoundExchange is not suggesting a world where FM radio goes away -- we're simply suggesting a world where FM radio pays recording artists and labels fairly,” it said. “Musicians should share a piece of the $17 billion in revenue that their music helps create."

The FCC Media Bureau seeks comment on a petition from the Advanced Television Broadcasting Alliance for a blanket extension or waiver of the expiration date of all outstanding construction permits for new digital low-power TV and TV translator stations to the Sept. 1, 2015, digital transition deadline. Initial comments are due Aug. 14, replies Aug. 29, the bureau said Monday in a public notice (http://bit.ly/1kWqI4u).

KAXT LLC received an FCC OK to sell Class A TV station KAXT San Francisco-San Jose to OTA Broadcasting, said a Media Bureau order released Friday (http://bit.ly/1jkjFHP). It denied a request to block the deal, noting its asset purchase agreement was declared valid by an arbitrator, and also denied a character objection to the transaction.

Bunzel Media Strategies President Reed Bunzel criticized SoundExchange President Michael Huppe for blaming FM radio for declining record sales, in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1jyYbas) Friday. “What Huppe -- and his fellow label execs in denial -- fail to accept is that the recorded music industry has used the terrestrial radio industry as its primary promotion and marketing platform since the 1950s, without paying a penny,” he said. “Performance fees, blanket licensing, uneven playing fields, and ‘artist’s fair shares'” is “another discussion entirely,” he said. Terrestrial radio “is in no way responsible for the tumult that the recorded music industry” is experiencing, said Bunzel. SoundExchange didn’t comment by our deadline.

A Block Communications petition (http://bit.ly/1iQRY3M) for the FCC to change retransmission consent negotiation rules to offset the bargaining power of larger broadcasters and pay-TV companies would result in “governmental intrusion” and is beyond FCC authority, NAB said Monday in a reply filing (http://bit.ly/1mk5DWg). “Given the individualized factors at issue in any particular negotiation, it would not be possible for the Commission to adopt rules that establish a perfect balance in every negotiation.” Congress “made it quite plain” that retrans negotiations should “function without government intervention,” NAB said in a filing posted Wednesday to RM-11720. It asked the FCC to deny the Block petition.

The FCC tentatively selected mutually exclusive low-power FM applications for grant in some western states using a point system, the agency said in a public notice released in Thursday’s Daily Digest (http://bit.ly/1kagUE3). The point system favored stations with an established community presence, local programming and diverse ownership, among other considerations, the PN said. The release of the notice kicks off a 30-day period for petitions to deny to be filed against the applicants, and a 90-day window for major change amendments and for applicants who are tied under the point system to file applications to “time-share” on the same frequency, the PN said. Full-power TV station owners should be aware of those dates, because many LPFM stations have asked for waivers of channel spacing rules, said Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1mOIFaV). “Full-power stations need to be vigilant to make sure that none of these applications (or any amendments subsequently filed by these LPFM applicants) will cause interference to their operation."

Broadcast station deal volume was $1.85 billion for Q2, a $2 billion drop from the year-ago quarter, said SNL Kagan in a news release Wednesday. Some $1.33 billion of the Q2 2014 number comes from TV station deals, while $518.6 million comes from radio. The broadcast sphere is “still a very robust deal market despite the decline from last year’s huge totals,” said the industry research firm. It said 613 stations total changed hands in the first half of 2014: 449 radio and 164 TV. The average price of a TV station in the first half of the year was $46.5 million, compared to $2.3 million for radio stations. The slower “pace of consolidation” in the TV station market was likely caused by recent changes to FCC ownership rules, SNL Kagan said. The largest TV transaction of the quarter was a $429.7 million 21st Century Fox trade of owned-and-operated affiliates in Boston and Memphis for a Cox Fox affiliate in San Francisco together with an independent station in the same market, SNL Kagan said. The largest deal that wasn’t a swap was Gannett’s $215 million purchase of six stations from London Broadcasting, SNL Kagan said. Those companies completed that deal, said a Gannett news release Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1w1x47Y). In radio, SNL Kagan said Q2’s biggest deal was the $105 million sale of four FM stations by Wilks Broadcast Group to Steel City Media.

Access to emergency alert system (EAS) warnings isn’t just a Spanish-language issue, but talk about it “has basically been an English-Spanish conversation,” said Asian Americans Advancing Justice. The Asian nonprofit group, which also goes by the AAJC acronym, backed a Minority Media and Telecommunications Council FCC proposal for multilingual broadcast alerts. But “simply concentrating on Spanish” EAS alerts “or the number of markets with Spanish-language stations ignores significant limited English proficient (LEP) Asian American populations who do not receive in-language warnings about emergencies,” said AAJC. MMTC’s proposal for backup stations to transmit alerts in languages other than English when nearby non-English stations are off-air raised implementation questions for some industry commenters, while others backed much of the plan (CD May 30 p10). MMTC had cited problems with Spanish speakers not getting alerts in New Orleans in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit, which AAJC said affected Asian-Americans, too. “Federal, state, and local authorities responsible for multilingual EAS alerts must use census data and other appropriate demographic surveys and conduct community outreach to assess the languages commonly spoken in any given community,” said an AAJC comment posted Monday in docket 04-296 (http://bit.ly/1tjwcPX). “With this knowledge, authorities at all levels can begin to ensure that language minority communities receive timely and accessible EAS alerts.” MMTC’s proposal “has always focused on all of those who speak languages other than English,” responded President David Honig in an email to us Tuesday. “Those populations sometimes have been misperceived as entirely Spanish speaking. We fully support AAJC’s observations and suggestions."