The FCC should consider “advance” programming, clip caption quality and other matters on requiring closed captioning for IP-delivered video clips, Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and other representatives of the deaf and blind communities said in an ex parte filing in docket 11-154 (http://bit.ly/1sSi542). The FCC should cover “advance” or “archival” clips under its rules, “rather than postponing doing so until later in this proceeding,” it said. The groups also urged the FCC to reject a proposal by Association of Public Television Stations and the Public Broadcasting Service to limit the coverage of video clips to only those clips that aren’t available in captioned full-length format. It shouldn’t be incumbent on viewers “who are deaf and hard of hearing seeking to view a clip to scour the Internet for the corresponding full-length program,” said the filing. It was on a series of meetings with staff from all the FCC commissioners’ offices, and the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau.

Pandora filed a petition for declaratory ruling that it complies with FCC foreign ownership rules, in response to an American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers objection to its attempted purchase of KXMZ(FM) Box Elder, South Dakota. The request would be the first test of the commission’s relaxed rules for foreign ownership of broadcasters (CD Nov 15 p3), attorneys told us. Pandora agreed to buy the station in June 2014 to qualify for the same publishing royalty rates as broadcasters to match Clear Channel-owned competitor iHeartRadio (CD June 17 p16). An FCC inquiry into Pandora’s ownership was prompted by ASCAP’s objections, leading Pandora to perform a survey of its shareholders, said the company’s petition. SEC policies on shareholder privacy are preventing the company from determining how many shareholders are foreign nationals, and an FCC rule that unknown shareholders should be treated as foreign means the company can’t prove it’s domestically owned, Pandora said. Because of those policies, the commission should permit Pandora to be up to 100 percent beneficially owned by foreign entities and for foreign entities to hold up to 49.9 percent of the aggregate voting authority over Pandora, said the petition. This would be “significantly more restrictive than the approach that the Commission has adopted with respect to common carrier wireless licensees,” and would mitigate historical concerns about foreign influence over broadcasters, Pandora said. Grant of the petition will enable Pandora to become a new entrant into the Rapid City radio market, where KXMZ is located, as well as facilitating the influx of new capital into the market, said the company. It said granting the petition would “bring a new business model to the mature broadcast radio industry, thereby furthering the Commission’s goal of fostering innovation."

A motion by public interest groups to consolidate several court challenges of new FCC policies on TV station sharing arrangements into one case should be granted, said the commission in a filing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The FCC’s support of consolidating the cases applies only if an NAB challenge to the Media Bureau’s processing guidelines for deals involving sharing arrangements isn’t dismissed (CD June 16 p16), the commission said. The agency has said it requested the dismissal of that case because it doesn’t fall under the jurisdiction of the court. “We agree with the movants that consolidation of all these cases would serve the interest of judicial economy and efficiency,” the FCC said in D.C. Circuit docket 14-1072.

The FCC will seek comment on emergency alert service (EAS) issues, including use of a national location code, national periodic test (NPT) code use, and video crawl and audio accessibility, it said in a rulemaking notice released last week (http://bit.ly/URszkY). The commission seeks comment on whether it should require the NPT to be activated like any other EAS alert, it said. Doing so would satisfy Federal Emergency Management Agency’s desire for a test in the near future, “and would do so in a manner that imposes minimal costs on EAS participants,” it said. The commission asks what might constitute “a speed that can be read by viewers,” and whether it should include a specific crawl speed in its rules, it said. The initial and reply comment deadlines are 30 days and 45 days from the Federal Register publication date respectively, it said.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau proposed a $12,000 fine against Birach Broadcasting for allegedly failing to enclose the two antenna structures in Canonsburg, Pa., for its station WWCS(AM), within effective locked fences, it said in a notice of apparent liability (http://bit.ly/VrJFXf). Previous apparent violations raise concerns that Birach “may have a systemic compliance issue with the antenna structure fencing rules,” it said. The bureau ordered Birach to submit information regarding the current fencing of its antenna structures, as well as a timeline to fix any current violations, it said.

A notice on the June 11 effective date for the FCC Media Bureau freeze on digital replacement translator applications and displacement applications appeared in the Federal Register Wednesday (http://1.usa.gov/1mfFAKG). The bureau issued a public notice this month on the effective date (CD June 12 p14).

Fox Television Stations will swap its stations in the Memphis and Boston markets for two Cox stations in the San Francisco Bay area market. It will be the first time that Cox will have a media presence in Memphis and Boston, Cox said in a news release Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1lUgV45). FTS will acquire Fox affiliate KTVU Oakland and the independent KICU-TV San Jose, Cox said. Cox will gain Fox affiliates WHBQ Memphis and WFXT Boston. Fox will gain more leverage in negotiating carriage deals for National Football Conference games, said Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker. By buying KTVU, “the company will now have even more leverage to the NFC by getting San Francisco 49ers games,” she said in a research note. Cox will get more leverage to American Football Conference games via the New England Patriots and Tennessee Titans, she said.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau fined a Florida man $15,000 for operating an unlicensed FM station on 89.5 MHz in Miami. Though Jean Salvador denies presently having a station, he doesn’t deny operating the unlicensed station in June or July 2013, “or being a DJ or organizer for the unlicensed station,” the bureau said in a forfeiture order (http://bit.ly/1mkkgbK). The bureau also proposed a $25,000 fine against CMARR for allegedly interfering with a Federal Aviation Administration weather radar in San Juan, Puerto Rico, by operating radio transmitters without a license. Given the risk to public safety, “and the fact that CMARR had already received a warning for similar violations, these actions warrant a significant penalty,” it said in a notice of apparent liability (http://bit.ly/1nD2ayi).

Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., urged the Department of Defense to reassess the level of advertising spending on black-owned radio stations. The stations aren’t having commercial ads placed “with those stations at a level commensurate with the audience they serve,” he said in a letter to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. If national advertisers are targeting the same demographics with a much more use of radio than DOD, “the department may be missing an opportunity,” he said. Johnson requested information from DOD, including a list of every broadcast and nonbroadcast entity with which the services placed ads. The National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters said it supported Johnson’s effort. “From our prior efforts, we know that obtaining cooperation from the Department of Defense can be a very difficult and time consuming task,” NABOB said Tuesday in a news release. The department received the letter from Johnson, said a spokesman for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense. DOD “will respond promptly and directly to him,” he said. “We appreciate his concerns regarding this issue."

The FCC’s new policies on TV sharing arrangements are to blame for three stations closing in Nebraska and North Dakota, said Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O'Rielly in a joint statement Tuesday (http://fcc.us/1l7YsuU). The stations are KHAS-TV Hastings, Nebraska, and in North Dakota KNDX Bismarck and KXND Minot. The three stations were to have been purchased by Excalibur Broadcasting and operated through sharing deals with Gray Television, the statement said. “These transactions, however, were blocked by the Commission’s new rules prohibiting the use of JSAs in these markets.” Similar to a recent announcement by Sinclair, the stations will be replaced by multicast channels on other Gray-owned stations. Gray has three more stations in Colorado, Louisiana and North Dakota that “will soon go dark because of the Commission’s JSA restrictions” the statement said. Gray said earlier this month it hired the brokerage arm of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council to sell all six stations. “Are these the victories for competition that critics of sharing agreements were hoping to see?” Pai and O'Rielly asked. “Or has the real goal all along just been to drive television stations off the air?” It could be hard to find a buyer, the commissioners said. “It could be difficult for a station to be viable in markets of this size over the long term with neither a major network affiliation nor a sharing agreement.” The stations referenced in the joint statement “aren’t dead,” said MMTC President David Honig in an interview, but are going dark as they wait to be sold. That’s not an uncommon practice, he said. “They are for sale, and we hope to find buyers."