An FCC draft order that would make TV joint sales agreements attributable has cost the U.S. broadcast-TV industry “many millions of dollars of investment” and will lead to job losses, NAB President Gordon Smith told FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a letter Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1dt9duI) that referenced a Friday meeting between the two. “I have no doubt that you didn’t intend curtailed investment and fewer American jobs to be the practical effect of the proposed rules,” Smith said. He focused on the draft order’s effect on existing joint service agreements, which the order would require to be unwound within two years. Businesses should be able to trust FCC decisions on deals that the agency has already approved, Smith said. “Why would anyone invest in a regulated entity if they knew that the rules could change mid-stream and new rules would be applied retroactively?” Instead, the FCC should take up an NAB-suggested plan for JSAs that would apply stricter standards to the degree of sharing allowed in such agreements (CD March 21 p1), and attribute only those that didn’t meet those standards, Smith said. “This way forward will give investors confidence that the commission will not be a 1970s style heavy handed regulator, but one that responds to market forces and seeks to encourage broadcasters."

Questions posed in an FCC public notice proposing rules for a multilingual emergency alert system (EAS) plan “reflect an interest in kicking the tires and looking under the hood,” a broadcast attorney said. The notice involves a designated-hitter backup plan to help non-English language stations knocked off the air during emergencies transmit EAS messages (CD March 13 p10). Broadcasters have expressed concern that such a requirement “would force them to hire folks fluent in one or more foreign languages,” wrote the industry lawyer, Fletcher Heald’s Harry Cole, on the law firm’s blog Thursday (http://bit.ly/1r5RRHP). It’s surprising that the FCC might be interested in such an unorthodox approach, Cole said. When was the last time “that the FCC suggested that a licensee might want to leave the keys to the station under the welcome mat ... so that some non-station announcers can take over for a while?” he asked. Refreshing the record “wouldn’t be necessary if the commission had, at some point in the last decade, taken action,” he added. The Minority Media and Telecommunications Council and other groups made the designated-hitter proposal in 2005.

The full tweet Thursday criticizing FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai for releasing statistics (CD March 21 p1) on minority media ownership said: “Commissioner Pai has a newfound concern for POC [people of color]. Dear Commissioner: YOU CAN'T SIT WITH US.” That tweet, from Free Press Policy Counsel Lauren Wilson, drew a rebuttal on Twitter from Pai, a news release from his office and an apology from Wilson. Her tweet was offensive for suggesting that Pai “should not be allowed to ’sit with’ other people of color because of his views on media regulation,” said the office of Pai, who is of Indian descent.

USTelecom urged the FCC to address the significant problems that occur when multichannel video programming distributors “are required to negotiate retransmission consent rights for multiple local stations as a single package,” it said in an ex parte filing in docket 10-71 (http://bit.ly/1kQvpyL). USTelecom supports further inquiries on how to address current imbalances in the retransmission consent process, “and move instead to true and free negotiations between broadcasters and MVPDs,” it said. The filing pertains to a meeting with staff from FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai’s office.

Sinclair’s board approved a buyback of as much as $150 million of the broadcaster’s stock, after an existing authorization with $47 million remaining is used, said the company in a news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/1pfpzae). The stock fell 9.1 percent Monday, when an analyst downgraded the sector on worries that TV station deals will be harder if the FCC approves at its March 31 meeting an order requiring some station sharing agreements be attributed for ownership quotas. (See separate report above in this issue.) Thursday, Sinclair closed up 3.8 percent to $27.03.

Sinclair will restructure its $985 million deal to buy Allbritton Communications’ TV stations to comply with guidelines for transactions involving sharing arrangements issued by the FCC last week (CD March 14 p9), the broadcaster said Thursday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1l8brCj ). “If the proposed restructuring is approved, Sinclair will sell certain stations it currently owns to parties other than the parties who were originally contemplated to buy these stations, and following the sale will not provide any services to such stations.” Sinclair is concerned the Media Bureau’s process for review of applications “would result in undue further delays to processing of the Applications and may result in the parties being unable to consummate the proposed transactions,” it said. Sinclair said it would sell WHP-TV, the CBS affiliate in Harrisburg, Pa., WMMP, the MyNetwork affiliate in Charleston, S.C., and WABM, the MyNetwork affiliate in Birmingham, Ala., if the restructuring is approved. Sinclair would also stop providing services to Fox affiliate WTAT Charleston and transfer the rights to provide services to WLYH Harrisburg to the buyer of WHP. “The proposed changes to the transaction will have an immaterial impact on Sinclair as a whole and on the Allbritton transaction in particular,” said CEO David Smith. “These markets were always a very small part of the Allbritton acquisition.” The stations to be sold were expected to contribute only about $21 million of earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation in 2014, and their sale will reduce the $21.5 million of “operating synergies” created in the Allbritton transaction by $2 million, Sinclair said.

AM radio will thrive in the future if all AM stations transition to iBiquity digital transmission within the next five to 10 years, Mount Wilson FM Broadcasters said in reply comments in docket 13-249 (http://bit.ly/1gbvCgc). Since filing initial comments in January, Mount Wilson completed the transition of its KMZT(AM) Beverly Hills, Calif., to digital hybrid facilities, it said. The signal quality on 1260 kHz is almost as good as the quality of material that is simulcast on Mount Wilson’s KKGO(FM) Los Angeles, it said.

The ABC Television Network Affiliate Board of Governors endorsed an agreement for ABC’s NewsOne news service. The agreement covers the use of news content on both the primary broadcast platform, “as well as multiple other distribution methods,” ABC said in a news release Tuesday. It’s an attempt to capture current uses of news content and anticipate future uses of video, “with reciprocity as a guiding principle,” it said. The agreement also preserves the NewsOne model and provides limits on content distribution, while still expanding rights to digital and social media platforms, ABC said.

NAB said the Justice Department wants the FCC to narrowly focus on antitrust laws over the public interest in attributing TV station joint sales agreements (JSAs), benefiting large advertisers and cable companies amid increasing online-ad competition. The association’s ex parte filing Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1hxxXPr), to be posted in docket 09-182 (http://bit.ly/1l1diZy), responded to Justice last month (CD Feb 24 p7) seeking ownership attribution. The FCC is tentatively set to vote March 31 on an order that would attribute the pacts when 15 percent or more of ad revenue is brokered by another separately owned station in the same market (CD March 18 p1). Justice is “overtly aware that its advice is in tension with core Commission policies and responsibilities,” wrote NAB. The department “relies on generalizations about the structure of JSAs, not actual evidence of consumer harm,” said the association. “If the Department acknowledged that broadcast television stations face a host of non-broadcast competitors (as they plainly do), it would dismantle the Department’s rationale for its proposed rule change.” NAB cited “stepped-up use of ‘interconnects'” by cable, DBS and telco-TV companies jointly selling commercials, and “substantial competition” to TV stations from online ads that “have reduced broadcasters’ revenues as advertisers allocate more of their budgets to locally targeted digital, mobile and social media” ads. Justice had no comment.

Harris Broadcast is now Imagine Communications and GatesAir. Imagine, a media software company, will be headquartered in Dallas, and radio and TV transmission company GatesAir will be based in Cincinnati, Imagine said in a press release (http://bit.ly/PJnAk0). By optimizing the highest quality video stream for delivery over the variety of bandwidth that users consume, Imagine’s TV Everywhere solutions “will enable all networks to dynamically adapt to the amount of available bandwidth,” it said. GatesAir is prepared to “guide broadcasters in effectively navigating major technology evolutions,” like digital conversion and the upcoming spectrum auctions, Imagine said.