Noncommercial radio stations attached to schools that aren’t having in-person classes can still follow the COVID-19 guidance issued by the FCC earlier this year exempting them from the minimum operating requirements, said Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford in a blog post Wednesday. Oxenford is correct, the Media Bureau confirmed. “You can continue to treat the period when students are generally not on campus as a recess when the station does not need to meet these minimum operating requirements,” said Oxenford, relaying his “informal conversations” with the FCC. The matter is “murkier” for schools that partially or fully invited students back to campus, Oxenford said. “I’m told that the FCC recognizes the difficulties that stations may face in the current environment -- and in these situations where schools are open or partially open to students, if the station cannot meet the minimum operating requirements set out above, the FCC will likely be willing to grant a station temporary authority to remain silent,” he said. This probably can be done “informally, by an email" to FCC Audio Division employees, Oxenford said.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel that has ruled on all four Prometheus cases has “for nearly two decades repeatedly elevated its own policy concerns over the statutory text,” said NAB in a cert petition reply brief filed Wednesday at the U.S. Supreme Court (see 2008060064). The filing is the last before SCOTUS considers whether to grant certiorari to NAB and the FCC’s appeal of the 3rd Circuit's most recent Prometheus ruling, and the case has been distributed for a Sept. 29 conference, according to the SCOTUS website. That means the court should decide by early October whether to take the case, attorneys told us. “Unless this Court grants review now, the Third Circuit’s misguided interpretation” will “continue to distort the FCC’s quadrennial reviews and thwart Congress’s intent,” said NAB. Arguments from the public interest groups in the case that the FCC’s quadrennial review, not SCOTUS, is a more proper venue for disputing ownership rules should be rejected, NAB said. The question isn’t whether the FCC properly interpreted the intent of Congress, it's whether the 3rd Circuit did, NAB said. “There is no authority for respondents’ extraordinary proposition that this Court may not correct a lower appellate court’s interpretation of a statute unless and until an agency ‘grapple[s] with the issue’ first.” said NAB. A grant of cert is “urgently needed now,” NAB said. “Due to the same Third Circuit panel’s repeated decisions, ownership rules from decades ago are frozen in place.”

The FCC’s approach to regulatory fees results in broadcasters paying for full-time employees in agency divisions such as the Office of Engineering and Technology that don’t work on broadcast issues, and the agency shouldn’t raise fees during the COVID-19 pandemic, NAB President Gordon Smith told Chairman Ajit Pai, according to an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 20-105 (see [Reg:2006300070]). “NAB cannot recall a case in recent memory where OET expended resources to work on an issue impacting the radio industry,” the filing said. The pandemic has “gutted” radio operations, NAB said. “Of all times, now is not the one for the Commission to turn its back on its duty to consider that the radio industry has not received any additional benefits from the work of the Commission during FY2020,” the filing said. “The NPRM continues to approach regulatory fees as if Congress never passed the RAY BAUM’S Act,” said the filing. That 2018 law in part addressed how the FCC calculates regulatory fees (see 2004220048).

Liberman Broadcasting has provided complete responses to initial questions from the Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the U.S. Telecom Services Sector, and the committee will complete its review within the 120-day deadline, said a letter in FCC docket 19-386 Thursday (see 1912230036). Liberman wants the ruling allowing it to be up to 100% foreign-owned because of an upcoming bankruptcy reorganization that will lead to its being controlled by SLA, a company ultimately controlled by other Cayman Islands-based entities whose owners who are U.K. residents. DOJ said the committee is “conducting an initial review to assess whether granting the Application will pose a risk to the national security or law enforcement interests” of the U.S. and the FCC will be notified “promptly” if the review is extended or there’s need for a secondary assessment.

The full FCC denied PMCM’s application for review (see 1906070074) appealing a Media Bureau approval of Connecticut Public Broadcasting Inc.’s move of WEDW Stamford, Connecticut, from Bridgeport, said a docket 18-126 order posted Tuesday. PMCM didn’t show the decision was improper, and CPBI’s filings were in compliance with an application freeze in effect at the time, the order said.

Delay implementation of proposed expanded audio description of video requirements to Oct. 1, 2021, because of COVID-19, said NAB in a call last week with staff from the FCC Media and Consumer and Governmental Affairs bureaus, according to an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 11-43. “The COVID-19 national emergency is causing substantial economic harm to the broadcasting industry, and the requested delay would provide affected stations more time to pivot onto firmer financial ground once the emergency hopefully subsides,” NAB said. The extra time could help stations “to better accommodate the costs of audio description in their annual budgets,” the filing said.

FCC staff settled with another radio licensee over political file issues (see 2008050046). Christian Family Media Ministries' renewal applications for three Kentucky stations didn't certify such compliance, and Media Bureau Audio Division employees found problems, said a bureau order and consent decree Friday. Christian Family Media agreed to "implement a comprehensive compliance" that includes reporting to the bureau, and the regulator will continue processing its renewal requests, the document said. The "pandemic has caused a dramatic reduction in advertising revenues which, in turn, has placed the radio broadcast industry, including the Company, under significant financial stress," it said. "The Company’s disclosures in its license renewal applications combined with the exceptional circumstances brought about by the pandemic present a unique situation."

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ Prometheus rulings left the FCC with “no apparent path forward,” acting U.S. Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall told the Supreme Court Thursday in a reply brief urging the court take up the commission’s appeal of Prometheus IV (see 2007210058). The 3rd Circuit’s repeated rulings against the FCC’s quadrennial broadcast ownership review orders require empirical analysis of the effect of rule changes on ownership diversity while striking down any such rule change, he said. “Remitting the Commission to yet another round of administrative review” would “merely prolong the FCC’s inability to fulfill its obligations.” SCOTUS review is needed to undo “damage to the Nation’s broadcast markets” and allow the FCC to respond to market developments, said the solicitor general. The public interest groups that won before the 3rd Circuit argued the FCC didn’t have justification to roll back ownership rules, but the government said that's a mischaracterization: The agency concluded there were “compelling competitive justifications” for loosening the rules and no data showing it would hurt female and minority ownership, so “the bare possibility that loosening the rules would have that adverse effect was not a sufficient reason to forgo an otherwise beneficial regulatory change." NAB is also expected to file a reply brief, due Aug. 19. A decision on whether to grant cert is expected in late September or early October, attorneys said. If the high court takes the case, it likely wouldn’t be argued until after the election, they said.

Eagle Broadcasting is the latest radio group settle with the FCC Media Bureau over political file violations, said a consent decree posted in Wednesday’s Daily Digest. As with others, Eagle disclosed the violations in a license renewal application, and the agreement includes a compliance plan but no monetary penalty (see 2008040065).

The FCC Media Bureau settled with two more radio broadcasters over self-disclosed political file violations, said consent decrees posted in Tuesday’s Daily Digest. La Zeta 95.7 and Skytower Communications-Etown said in license renewal applications their stations hadn’t fully complied with agency political file requirements, the decrees said. As for many other broadcasters in recent weeks (see 2008030050), the bureau called COVID-19 and the self-disclosures mitigating circumstances in the settlements, which don’t include financial penalties. The broadcasters will have to follow a compliance plan to prevent future violations, and their renewals will be processed.