A distributed transmission system signal “is a broadcast TV signal by any other name,” and TV white space rules should apply, said Microsoft in a call with aides to FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel Tuesday, per a filing posted in docket 20-74 Friday. The FCC should maintain existing rules and institute an expedited waiver process for ATSC 3.0 stations that seek to allow the DTS signal to extend a minimal amount beyond their current maximum service areas, Microsoft said. The agency's DTS item has sufficient votes for approval (see 2101050063).

TCL has no current plans to make its TVs compatible for ATSC 3.0 (see 2101130068), a virtual CES event heard. The company has no plans to support the 3.0 standard in 2021, a spokesperson said Wednesday. The company will bring the TCL Home app, available in some markets now, to the U.S. this year, said Aaron Dew, TCL North America director-product development. TCL’s Android and Roku TVs will be controllable through the app, allowing them to manage the company’s smart home appliances from TVs, too. The company is also eyeing 5G (see 2101130072).

The FCC’s proposed distributed transmission system rule changes “would allow broadcasters to transmit beyond their existing service area without a clearly defined need for such an expansion” and “undermine” TV white space technology, said Connect Americans Now, ACT|The App Association and the Open Technology Institute at New America in calls with aides to FCC Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks Tuesday, per a joint ex parte filing in docket 20-74. If DTS deployments are permitted more than a minimal amount of spillover, the FCC should “explicitly state" in the report and order that "these transmissions are unlicensed and do not receive interference protection,” the filing said. The agency should maintain the existing contour and deny changes that would allow DTS signal spillover above a minimum amount outside licensed service areas. FCC and industry officials told us the item received the necessary votes to be approved, but it hadn’t been released.

The FCC issued a $233,000 forfeiture against Cumulus and some subsidiaries for violating a 2016 consent decree by allegedly breaking FCC sponsorship ID rules, said an order Thursday. The FCC didn’t reduce the amount of the fine despite Cumulus’s arguments it should, but Commissioner Geoffrey Starks dissented from the order and Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel concurred. Neither FCC Democrat provided a statement with the order, but Starks’ office said he dissented for the same reasons expressed in his dissent from the original August 2019 notice of apparent liability (see 1908060068). Starks, a former Enforcement Bureau staffer, said then the fine amount was too low, “does not follow well-established Commission precedent” and the "system only works if noncompliance with our consent decrees is strongly punished.” According to the NAL and forfeiture order, seven stations owned by Cumulus subsidiaries violated a 2016 consent decree 26 times by airing ads in 2017 and 2018 without proper sponsorship ID, and waiting eight months to report the violations, the NAL said. The consent decree required violations to be reported in 15 days. The 2016 consent decree was also for sponsorship ID violations, and was part of a $540,000 settlement between Cumulus and the FCC under then-Chairman Tom Wheeler. Cumulus argued the $233,000 forfeiture for the more recent ads is excessive, because it has gone through a bankruptcy and restructuring since the 2016 violations, and that as a large broadcaster the violations represent a small percentage of the ads it airs. The agency didn’t agree. “If a corporate entity chooses to acquire many stations, it must ensure that it scales up its compliance efforts accordingly,” the forfeiture order said. “The Respondent’s implication that it is a drastically different organization post-transfer is belied by the fact that its core senior management remained unchanged by the transfer of control,” the order said. The attorney who signed the consent decree is Richard Denning, who's still Cumulus general counsel, and the CEO remains Mary Berner, the order noted. “Our interest in ensuring compliance with consent decrees and deterring the recurrence of violations of the very same rule at issue supports the upward adjustment in this case,” the order said. Cumulus didn’t comment.

NextGenTV can “evolve over time,” said ATSC President Madeleine Noland. “It’s not something that’s so static, like today’s television system.” ATSC 3.0's framers decided to “design it for 4K right now, knowing that we can upgrade to 8K basically at any time,” she told the virtual CES Tuesday. South Korean broadcasters recently started “field trials” delivering 8K over 3.0 using the existing H.265 video codec, she said. Noland predicted consumers who adopt NextGenTV will “get addicted” to the platform's HDR and wide color gamut capabilities. Executives also discussed 8K. Fox Sports used three 8K cameras when it televised Super Bowl LIV Feb. 2, said Michael Davies, senior vice president-field and technical operations. “It paled in comparison, somewhat, to the 102 other cameras we had, yet we did do the whole thing in HDR." Davies last visited Japan just before the pandemic, “and I was embarrassed to say we were still producing shows in 720p SDR,” he said. The Japanese "weren’t even talking about 4K at that point," he said. "They were talking about 8K.”

The FCC Media Bureau seeks comment on two proposed TV channel substitutions in Tulsa and in Jefferson City, Missouri, said Tuesday public notices. KTUL Licensee wants to substitute channel 14 for channel 10 for KTUL Tulsa, and KRCG Licensee wants to swap channel 29 for channel 12 for KRCG Jefferson City. The dates will be after Federal Register publication.

Comments on an FCC proposal to change FM booster rules to allow geotargeted radio broadcasts (see 2012010059) are due Feb. 10, replies March 12, said a Media Bureau public notice in Monday’s Daily Digest.

Sony will build NextGenTV compatibility into five lines of Bravia XR TVs for 2021, said the company Thursday. Preloaded on all the sets will be a new streaming feature called Bravia Core, developed with Sony Pictures Entertainment. It’s capable of achieving “near lossless” quality equivalent to that of Ultra HD Blu-ray, with streaming up to 80 Mbps, Sony said.

SoundExchange will audit Cumulus, Emmis, Pandora and Urban One to verify royalty payments for online music, said the Copyright Royalty Board. Other Friday Federal Register notices indicated audits for Music Choice and Rockbot. “The decision to audit a company is not necessarily any indication that SoundExchange considers something amiss with that company’s royalty payments -- instead they audit a cross-section of services each year,” blogged Wilkinson Barker's David Oxenford. Outside accounting firms do the analysis, issuing a report that's reviewed by the audited parties before being given to SoundExchange, which can collect underpaid royalties, the broadcast attorney wrote, adding that results aren’t usually public.

The draft ATSC 3.0 distributed transmission system order “will adversely impact the availability of television white spaces (TVWS) spectrum in rural areas and undermine the expansion of rural broadband access,” said Microsoft in a call with aides to FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington Tuesday, per a filing posted Friday in docket 20-74. “The current DTS signal spillover standard should be maintained,” and any more than “a minimum amount” should be permitted via a case-by-case waiver process, the filing said. The DTS has sufficient votes to be approved (see 2101050063).