FCC ownership rules are preventing Legend Communications from buying more stations to air local content, the company told Commissioner Brendan Carr Thursday as part of the latter’s Midwest trip, per a filing posted Friday in docket 18-349. Legend officials took Carr to visit competing radio stations that they said offer little local content, the filing said. “Those stations were not manned when visited -- the doors were locked, and no lights were on in the building during this visit during normal business hours.” Legend said it faces advertising competition from Google and Facebook, “resulting in a loss of an estimated $30-40,000 in monthly billing to the Legend stations.” If the firm could buy more stations, it said it would cover more high school sports and possibly offer Spanish-language programming. The FCC should relax radio local ownership rules, Legend said. Many broadcasters made arguments echoing Legend's in quadrennial review replies posted earlier last week (see 1905300018).

The FCC should deny a low-power TV displacement application in Temecula, California, to prevent it from interfering with the county's emergency communications over land mobile radio, Los Angeles county petitioned to deny, posted Thursday. Channel 51's engineering study is “fatally flawed” and “there is no question” the translator will cause “significant interference” to the county’s emergency communications, the municipality said. Assurances the translator operator would be required to “cure” the interference if it occurs aren’t sufficient, the county said. “The allocation would place responsibility and huge costs on LA County to detect interference and determine its source,” the fling said. “The public interest demands that the public not be forced to bear such costs.” Friday, Channel 51 didn't comment.

Lifting radio ownership caps would frustrate FCC AM revitalization and hurt broadcast diversity, said the Multimedia Internet and Telecom Council in replies posted Wednesday in docket 18-349. “The effect this policy would have on smaller, diverse broadcasters would ultimately place them at risk of being pushed out,” said MMTC of an NAB proposal to relax subcap limits. MMTC also objected to NAB arguments against a proposal to require diversity in broadcaster procurement practices. NAB's claims Congress never intended broadcasters to follow such policies or that the FCC doesn't have the authority to enact the proposal are incorrect and “illogical,” MMTC said. MMTC proposals for metrics to calculate diversity should be considered, the filing said. The economic formulas “could allow the FCC to make less arbitrary decisions,” it said.

Objections to Apollo Global Management's proposed buy of stations from Northwest Broadcasting and Cox lack standing and haven't shown the deal violates any commission policies (see 1905130058), said opposition from Cox, Northwest and Apollo subsidiary Terrier Media Buyer posted in docket 19-98 Wednesday. “These ill-informed, speculative fears cannot provide a basis for delaying or denying.” Anticonsolidation groups claiming Terrier Media will gut local news programs because it's owned by private equity investors are ”simply wrong,” the joint filing said. “If Terrier Media ruins the local services the Stations provide, then it will have significantly undermined the value of its substantial investment in this business.” Arguments from the American Television Alliance that the acquisition would affect retransmission consent negotiations are “transparent regulatory rent-seeking” that the FCC has repeatedly rejected, the joint filing said. “No MVPD is ever required to sign any retransmission consent agreement. Ever.” ATVA, Common Cause and the United Church of Christ Office of Communications also failed to show that the transaction would affect any of their members, calling their standing into question, the joint filing said. The broadcasters also responded to an accusation from Darryl Beauford -- a viewer of Cox's WSB-TV Atlanta -- who said the deal should be rejected because he was denied access to the station’s physical public file when he tried to view it in 2015. Beauford didn't clearly explain what he was seeking, and station staff did let him view the physical file once it became clear which document he wanted to view, the joint filing said.

The 2019 national test of the emergency alert system is scheduled for Aug. 7, said the Federal Emergency Management Agency in a letter to the FCC posted Thursday in docket 15-94. Aug. 21 is the backup. Though the letter gives the initial test date as taking place in 2016, FEMA officials told us that’s a typo. “This year FEMA proposes to originate the test via the National Public Warning System composed of the FEMA designated Primary Entry Point (PEP) facilities,” the letter said. “The intent of conducting the test in this fashion is to determine the capability of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) to deliver messages to the public in event that dissemination via internet is not available.” Due to the use of this method, the test won’t include the richer message text and multilingual options available when messages are delivered using the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System. “As in past years the national EAS test message will look and sound very much like the regular Required Monthly Test (RMT) messages broadcast every month by all EAS Participants,” the letter said.

Multimedios is seeking an FCC foreign-ownership declaratory ruling to allow its subsidiary Leading Media Group to buy five radio stations in Texas, said a petition posted Wednesday. Since Multimedios is entirely based in Mexico, the company needs FCC permission for the purchasing subsidiary to be 100 percent foreign owned for the deal to go through, the petition said. “Multimedios’s ownership will permit LMG to serve the public interest in South Texas by bringing to the Stations its extensive broadcast experience and expertise and an influx of resources.” The stations involved in the prospective deal are KBDR(FM) Mirando City, its booster KBDR-FM1 Laredo, KNEX(FM) Laredo, KLNT Laredo and KURV Edinburg.

Free Press, Common Cause, and other anticonsolidation groups challenging the FCC 2014 quadrennial broadcast ownership review will have slightly more time to argue before the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals than their broadcaster and diversity group fellow petitioners, said a division of time form filed (in Pacer) with the court Wednesday by United Church of Christ attorney Cheryl Leanza. A court order Wednesday gave the FCC 30 minutes for oral argument and 30 minutes for the petitioners to divide up (see 1905210037). According to the form, the Independent Television Group -- a collection of small and mid-size broadcasters represented by broadcast attorney Jack Goodman -- will lead off the petitioner’s arguments for nine minutes. Goodman will be followed by nine minutes of Stinson attorney Dennis Lane, representing the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council and the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters. Finally, Leanza will have 12 minutes to argue on behalf of UCC, and groups including Common Cause, Free Press and Prometheus Radio Project. Oral argument is set for June 11.

Kidvid recordkeeping and reporting rules should be relaxed to reduce the burden on Ion Media’s 70 TV stations, an Ion executive and former FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell told his former colleague Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel Thursday, said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 18-122. McDowell, now at Cooley, represents Ion. The FCC should ensure companies like Ion “maintain undiminished access to interference-free satellite transport of video programming,” in any plan to repurpose C-band spectrum, the broadcaster said.

Oral argument is set for June 11 in what will be called Prometheus IV, said an order (in Pacer) Tuesday from the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The challenge of the FCC 2014 broadcast ownership quadrennial review (see 1905030048) takes place before the same three-judge panel as the previous Prometheus cases: Thomas Ambro, Julio Fuentes and Anthony Scirica. That panel has ruled against the FCC in each of the case’s three previous iterations. The agency gets 30 minutes to argue, said a letter (in Pacer) from the clerk of the court, while petitioners’ 30 minutes will have to be divided up by the three sets of challenging entities. They are anticonsolidation groups that include Prometheus Radio Project, a group of small and midmarket broadcasters that includes Quincy Media and Morgan Murphy Media, and a third set of the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council and National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters. Oral argument is in U.S. District Courthouse in Philadelphia.

Comments on a Cumulus petition for a declaratory ruling that would allow it to be up to 100 percent foreign owned are due June 20, replies July 8, said a public notice in Tuesday’s FCC Daily Digest. Cumulus wants to allow holders of warrants and nonvoting stock to “convert or exercise these instruments in exchange for voting stock” and after that exchange, the company's foreign ownership would be at 34 percent, the PN said. Though that’s less than what Cumulus is requesting, the broadcaster “believes that elimination of the overall limitation on foreign ownership of its shares will, inter alia, enhance the market liquidity of its stock,” the PN said.