The Wireless Bureau granted CBS a waiver for KCNC-TV Denver and broadcast auxiliary station KPF238 to permit operation of KPF238 using digital radio devices. CBS has shown that a broadcast auxiliary facility “can operate on the proposed frequencies with the requested emission designator without causing interference or other adverse effects to other spectrum users,” the bureau said in a letter to CBS (http://bit.ly/Sil5qe). The use of digital equipment will enable CBS to transmit both voice and data with a single 12.5 KHz channel, “which cannot be done when the station is operating in analog mode,” it said.

Bott Communications, Inc. (BCI) asked the FCC to reject Jet Fuel Broadcasting’s petition for reconsideration concerning Jet Fuel’s application for a new AM station at Orchard Homes, Mont. The commission rejected the application. The recon petition is “moot” and “untimely,” Bott said in its opposition. Jet Fuel’s petition was filed 26 days late, it said. Jet Fuel “should be admonished for making scurrilous and unsupported ad hominem attacks against BCI and its principals,” BCI said. The petition raises arguments “that are untimely, misplaced, unsupported, and which, through name calling, discredit Jet Fuel and its case,” it said.

The FCC Audio Division’s increase in speed in the resolution of applications for review is notable, a broadcast attorney said. It is likely a result of an effort by the division to identify and “package” cases appropriate for relatively streamlined treatment, and “an affirmative response to that effort from the 8th floor,” Fletcher Heald attorney Donald Evans said in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1uePPXl). The latter factor is particularly noteworthy because, under former chairmen Kevin Martin and Julius Genachowski, the commission “reportedly showed zero interest in dealing with pretty much any routine Media Bureau applications for review,” he said. The commission under Chairman Tom Wheeler “has encouraged disposition of those long-pending items,” he said. If only the other bureaus and divisions would follow a similar course, “those mountains of years-old applications for review could be reduced to molehills,” he said.

The FCC Media Bureau seeks comment on a series of NPRMs on FM channel allotments. The bureau’s Audio Division seeks comment on a proposal from Bryan Broadcasting to substitute Channel 274A for Channel 267A at Centerville, Texas, it said in an NPRM (http://bit.ly/1rYgLIU). The division invites comment on Ashley Bruton’s proposal to allot Channel 280A at McCall, Idaho, as the community’s eighth local service, said a separate NPRM (http://bit.ly/1joRGUT). Bruton also filed a Form 301 application for Channel 280A at McCall, it said. The Navajo Nation proposed to allot FM Channel 258C2 at Rough Rock, Arizona, as a first local service, the division said (http://bit.ly/1joSpFz). Initial comments in all proceedings are due June 23, replies July 8.

An FCC Media Bureau public notice announcing increased scrutiny for transactions involving sharing arrangements violates the Administrative Procedure Act, said NAB in a letter to the FCC Thursday (http://bit.ly/1uffkI8). The FCC should order the bureau to withdraw the notice ((http://fcc.us/OoNg4k) and “cease and desist” applying the stricter scrutiny to transactions by May 8, the letter says. The PN violated the APA by being “fatally premature,” since it was issued before the commission changed the rules governing joint sales agreements, NAB said. “The FCC cannot regulate on the basis of speculation and conjecture."

No one topped Media General’s deal to buy LIN Media, during a “window-shop” period that ended Friday, said LIN in a news release Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1iOi2Qx). The deal is valued at about $2.6 billion and divestitures will be needed to get FCC approval (CD March 24 p6).

The FCC Media Bureau granted a rulemaking petition to Western Pacific Broadcast, which requested a change in community of license to Dover, Del. The public interest would be served by realloting Channel 5 from Seaford, and modifying the construction permit for Western’s WMDE-TV, an unbuilt station, accordingly, the bureau said in a report and order (http://bit.ly/1hXADc7). The change in community of license wouldn’t result in a change in Western Pacific’s proposed contour coverage of Seaford, it said. The bureau also dismissed a reconsideration petition filed by PMCM-TV on a report and order to amend the post-transition table of DTV allotments to allot Channel 5 to Seaford. The bureau dismissed the petition as untimely, it said in a memorandum opinion and order on further reconsideration (http://bit.ly/1n2O8L2).

The LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition continued to caution the FCC against establishing too large a guard band between spectrum blocks in the final band plan for the broadcast spectrum auction framework. The Spectrum Act directs the guard band size “to be only as large as is ’technically reasonable’ to prevent inter-service interference,” the coalition said in an ex parte filing posted Tuesday to docket 12-268 (http://bit.ly/1fBZIdH). There’s nothing in that legislation that directs the commission to provide unlicensed advocates “with anything at all in terms of accommodation for a scale of a service,” it said. The group opposed requests by Google, New America Foundation and others for a 24 MHz to 30 MHz contiguous band for unlicensed use, it said. Any attempt by the FCC to accommodate these positions by enlarging what’s technically needed for a guard band “will by considered by the LPTV community as a direct taking of the spectrum needed to repack our vital licensed services,” the coalition said.

NAB CEO Gordon Smith told FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel Monday about the association’s concerns on a new TV station resource-sharing attribution order and that agency staff shouldn’t change Office of Engineering and Technology bulletin 69 on predicting a TV licensee’s coverage area. Another new FCC item, adopted March 31 along with the sharing order, asked about changing network non-duplication and syndicated exclusivity rules (CD April 1 p11) (http://fcc.us/1hXNQBE). Those rules serve the public interest by promoting localism, Smith and another NAB executive told Rosenworcel and an aide, according to an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 14-50 (http://bit.ly/1hXOijn).

The FCC proposed fining a Louisville, Ky., man $15,000 for operating what it called a pirate radio station there at 87.9 and 99.5 MHz, said an Enforcement Bureau notice of apparent liability released in Wednesday’s Daily Digest (http://bit.ly/1ftI9ws). It said Jose Alejandro Aguilar “continued to operate the radio station notwithstanding” a “warning ... warranting a significant penalty.” The FCC and other state and federal agencies have been cracking down on pirate FM stations (CD Sept 28/11 p4; April 22 p12).